Quack
Posts: 1961
Joined: May 2007
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Not my best, but I couldn't resist the urge to tickle Barry's feetsoles. Or was it to needle his Ego?
| Quote | CabalMarch 14, 2013 at 4:04 am
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I believe this is a discussion better left to professional philosophers and psychologists.
To me it seems poorly suited for making an argument questioning the validity of the scientifc theory of evolution. Especially since after twenty years, I still don’t know anything about ID except that ID is not in opposition to ToE, it is just the claim that magic (the effort of a mythical “designer”) is a better explanation for some signficant aspects of the evolutionary record of life. Although there are variations on the theme; some say the designer is unknown and according to Behe might even be dead by now, while others are convinced God is the designer. I don’t know if the suggested existence of multiple designers has been ruled out.
Anyway, WRT the subject of beliefs, man’s abiltity to believe in just about anything you might conjure, it is a fact of life we are forced to admit is real.
Beliefs may be held without any relevance at all to whether the belief is ‘true’ or ‘false’.
That becomes clear when we consider the belief in the existence of Bigfoot. Some people believe in Bigfoot, and we understand that the belief is unrelated to the question: Is Bigfoot real, or not?
The argument “No, religious explanations are false. Believing them is just gullibility …” makes an important point. We have to differentiate between the undeniable fact of the religious aspects of man’s mind, and the things that man may believe. Man has a great capactiy for believing: Magic, Voodo, Marxism, alien abductions, angels, miracles, Dec. 2012 end of the world; the list is endless.
Man’s tendency to believe may well be a result of evolution; it has been suggested as a positive trait in being conducive to cooperation within a tribe or population group.
Salesmen are exploiting man’s nature to the best of their ability. The proliferation of religious sects with the most bizarre beliefs, with leaders adopting a postion of absolute authority comes to mind.
Suicide sects are another example.
What would the world look like if we did not have the ability to believe?
Sir, ICBM’s are coming this way.
- Nonsense.
Another aspect of religion is the experience of a power within our mind. Hearing voices is not a modern invention, it is a phenomenon well recorded in the Bible. Is the ‘speaker’ inside a man’s mind, or not? I believe there is a power in our mind. It is also the source of dreams.
According to th book of Job, God is the source of dreams. According to depth psychology, dreams are a product of our subconscious. I prefer to view the subconscious as the superconscious; it knows a lot more about us than our conscious self does, and is doing its best to set us straight by dreams. Messrs. Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung said something about that.
I don’t know if it has been determined if our awareness of dreams are only a byproduct of mental processes during sleep, with our interpretation of dreams only a lucky consequence?
The liberating effect of dreams properly interpreted is well documented. (KJV Bible, Job 33:14 – 33)
An interesting aspect of dreams is the fact that they speak in symbols. I see a conncetion with the fact that man’s early written languages were symbolic as well. Even our alphabet is made of symbols; each symbol representing a sound.
With all that said, I don’t doubt that a believer may die happier than a non-believer. He may die with a big grin on his face: OMG, I am on my way to heaven to see my loved ones again and we will forever live happily together. |
ETA Posted it here because I didn't see it at UD, my mistake.
Edited by Quack on Mar. 16 2013,03:18
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Rocks have no biology.
Robert Byers.
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