Don't Confuse Me With the Facts: Atheist Reaction to my 200 Studies on Religoius Experince

Originally Posted by Deist

I looked at your site. All I saw was a bunch of names. Are we supposed to check out each name and see what that dolt said? You, as a scholar, can't compile the 200 alleged "proofs" and put them on your blog??? Are you kidding me??

What he's calling a list of names is bibliography listing the studies for the arguments I make on religious experience. These are the 200 studies I always talk about that show experiencing God's presence changes our life dramatically in long term positive way. These studies over a 50 year period all show that religious experience is good for you. What he's calling "a bunch of names" also include publication data so the reader can look them up. Of course in five years of talking about them they never have. I can't link to the studies (I've tired) most of them are either not on the net or they are JOSTOR or Pub med you have to pay to see them. The next best thing and all that is required in debate is to provide the citation so they can be looked up.

Here's an example, the first few cites:

Adams, N. (1995). Spirituality, science and therapy. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 16 (4), 201-208.

Alexander, C. (1978). A literature review of the individual differences approach to mystical states of consciousness and a proposed alternative perspective. Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University, Dept. of Psychology and Social Relations, Cambridge, MA.

Alexander, C. (1982). Ego development, personality and behavioral change in inmates practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique or participating in other programs: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study. Doctoral dissertation, Dept. of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Alexander, C., Boyer, R. & Orme-Johnson, D. (1985). Distinguishing between transcendental consciousness and lucidity. Lucidity Letter, 4(2), 68-85.

Alexander, C.N., Chandler, K. & Boyer, R.W. (in press). Experience and understanding of pure consciousness in the Vedic Science of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In Gackenbach, J.I. & Hunt, H. (Eds.). Higher states of consciousness: Theoretical and experimental perspectives, N.Y.: Plenum. 1990

Alexander, C.N., Davies, J.L., Dixon, C.A., Dillbeck, M.C., Oetzel, R.M., Muehlman, J.M. & Orme-Johnson, D.W. (in press). Higher stages of consciousness beyond formal operations: The Vedic psychology of human development. In C.N. Alexander and E.J. Langer (Eds.), Higher stages of human development: Adult growth beyond formal operations, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.

That's the "bunch of names." ALL I saw was a "bunch of names." of course he just didn't notice it's also publisher, name of publication, date of publication and so on. He's never a bibliography before. this illiterate who has never done a bibliography actually said my scholarship is lacking!

My God you guys are so lazy. how do you think I know this stuff? because I did check it out. yes in fact you are expected to check out every name! btw do you not understand the concept of Bibliography? were excuse form all English classes?

If there was a site were all these studies on the net and could be linked to I would be linked to. Most of them are on Pub med and Jostar and other academic sties that require money to see. I had to get them in hard copy one by one. I did. so I'm not concerned that you have to go to some effort. did I say you have to see every one? why can't you just get one?

in five years not one of you has done that.

before you start ragging on my scholarship be sure you know what that word means. one of the major things it meas is a knowledge of how to look stuff up.

You write volumes on your blog, and yet the link just goes to names of people? You think we're stupid? We're supposed to spend hours and days looking up what each of these people said? YOU are the one making the claims. Put the studies, surveys, questionnaires, etc. on your blog, so we can examine them for ourself. What are you afraid of?

Gee why didn't I think of that? You mean like there:

http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2011/08/defense-of-m-scale.html

Here:
http://www.doxa.ws/experience/mystical.html

here:

http://www.doxa.ws/experience/Mystical3.html

here:

http://www.doxa.ws/meta_crock/Supernature4.html

it's all over my old site and on my new one.

do I think you are stupid? Let's see, you don't know what documentation is. you don't know what bibliographies are. you don't understand that the word "scholar" means. you don't know ow work a library you can't figure out that you don't need to look at every one bu a random sample would tell what you want to know.

I'll hold off judgement on if I think you are stupid I'll let the reader decide.

the things I"m saying may seem absurd to your generation but it's the way I grew up dong it. No debate team in America would go into a debate round in high school or college debate on the assumption that they have to have all he material with them in entirety. It's perfectly acceptable to offer just the source so an enterprising debater can look it up.

If I had to spend five years researching these studies and into this body of knowledge, why can't you be bothered to look one up?

atheist said:

You won't, cause you know darn well that these studies stink, and don't show what you claim.

That is BS. I know damn well the opposite is true. I've talked to many of the researchers. I have gotten to know the major researcher of most of them, the inverter of the M scale personally. I was a sociology major I studied how to do social science research in college both graduate and undergraduate and I know these are find studies. they are varying in quality but some are very very good.

this says a lot more about the critic's laziness and ideological bias and lack of expertise in social scinece research.

Meta, you should be ashamed of your obfuscation and diversion.

you should be ashamed of your refusal to undersatnd the truth. you do not know what research is about.

stop your little pretensions lecture you do not have the erudition to which you pretend.



he goes on

You know better. the people here are too smart for this. This isn't catechism class. The people here regularly run circles around these Christians. You need better stuff than a blog with names of people who have done class papers, or written in some obscure college journal or a religious mag about sending out questionnaires. I'm not even sure if that's what those people did.

That's a list of names it's the citations for the studies. Where you look them up.
Some appear to study the occult, lucid dreaming, childhood memories, and who knows what all. Maybe alien abductions. And this is to be taken seriously??? Seriously, Meta...come onnnnn!!!!

(hey reader: do you see this actually proves he didn't read the stuff. He took the other guy's word for it that it was just a bunch of names, either that or he doesn't know what bibliography is either.

Atheist Says:

Is your point that people who claim a god belief do better in test questions on happiness than non believers? That's a no brainer because they believe they will be happier, and therefore, they are.

This is rich. The studies are mostly questionnaires because more social science studies are. Most of these were done psychologists. Its' a complex matter of constructing a good scientific questionarie (yes they can be) then making a good study design in terms of random and representative study, double and all of that. This guy assumes that because they asking them question they don't know if they had an experience or if their lives are better. They are so stupid because they had experiences they can't be trusted to say dah I'm happier now." They can't be trusted to say if their lives, they couldn't know. If they made a black box and imposed the will of a scientist on them and said "we find that be electrical impulses given off form this person are indicative of the impulses given off by happy people" perhaps they would except that, that would be objective and scientific! It would also be BS and scinece fiction. They have been brain washed as atheist to deny personal experience to think of perception as always flawed and never trust worthy.

They can't undersatnd how surveys and questionnaires are scientific and how they can be designed into a good scientific study because they don't know scinece. All they know is the mystique of "objective." Black boxes and flashing lights and mathematics that's science. We can't trust anything anyone says. so if someone says they had an experience and it made their lives better hat's a lie. It never occurs to them to wonder, gee how is it all the people who make up these certain kinds of experiences just happen to make up the same kind of betterment that it brings them? O it's just a coincidense don't even think about it.

Your studies, surveys, whatever you call them prove only that the law of cause and effect, and that you are what you believe you are. Tony Robbins could impart the same message, with the same, or better, results.

Whatever you call them (don't confuse me with the facts, they are not even worth bothering to learn the names). He assumes some kind of placebo but no athist has ever answered my answer to that: most of these experiences are first time conversion experiences by people who didn't know about them and weren't looking to have them. 45% are in children the first time they have them.. He doesn't even bother to learn the facts. If he did he would realize his argument isn't worth making. How can it be expectations when they don't expect it? Moreover if it's just "confirmation bias" how is it that experiences that contradict doctrine are common place? That shouldn't be if this is just fulfillment of expectoration they should all agree with pet doctrines.

Atheism is a cult it's a brain washing these people are prevented from thinking objectively and reasonably about scientific facts and data that disprove their cherished ideology.

btw this has been going on for five years on CARM. In that time none of them have bothered to look up a single study. Here's a dialogue I did with an atheist on CARM explaining all about the 200 studies.