Atheist Bait and Switch: The Illusion of the Empirical

 

 

NoctambulantJoycean's bait and switch.

Still with Noctabulantjoycean's argument on carm. (see last post) He has argued that he has a  lot of empirical evidence to disprove the resurrection. He further argues that the attempts to defend the doctrine are "had hoc" and that's damning for it becuase it opens it up to the charge of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is a major psychological theory, one advanced by Leon Festinger in the 1950s. The theory has stood the test of time and has become a major theory in psychology.

Noctambulant doesn't really have any specific evidence against the resurrection. The articles he linked to actually said that Festinger's theory has become accepted and there is a great deal of empirical evidence to support it. The empirical evidence supports the theory, and Noctambulant wants to apply the theory to the resurrection. In all fairness it has been done, in fact Festinger himself raised the possibility if memory serves correctly.I don't have a link for that but I was reading Festinger for a sociology class around the time I got saved and I considered it as a major factor in my deliberations about belief.

I had argued before that the nature of belief system includes certain doctinal elements that can't be considered ad hoc because of their position in relation to the whole bleief system, the come with the package. He argues that this has nothing to do with it.

Noctambulant

post 11

An ad hoc explanation is one that is constructed with no supporting evidence or argument simply to avoid an unwanted conclusion. Thus, pointing out that a doctrine "ancient" does nothing to show its not ad hoc. For example, take the article "When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical overview" or any of the plethora of studies on what ad hoc mechanisms religious believers use to rationalize the failure of a prophecy. I think (and others have argued) those same mechanisms were used by the early disciples of Jesus to rationalize his death (after all, the Jewish Messiah was not prophecied to die before completing his work). You could not then respond to my argument by saying "well, the claims of the disciples represent an ancient tradition and thus cannot be ad hoc." That would be a silly response. A claim can be ad hoc, no matter how old it is or who said it before a given speaker resorted to employing it. ."

the paper he refers to is by Lorne L. Dawson. you can see the abstract and first page here:

 
 Leon Festinger


The ad hoc argument came up in the previous post. The issue as he raised it was essentially about epistemic presumption. In his view religious doctrines dont' have any. Of course for the typical atheist being religious doctrine is automatic disproof anyway.I argued that doctrines of a belief system come with the package and enjoy the same presumption for the believer that the  system as a whole does becuase they rest on the same support that convinced the bleieve in the first place. This argument soared over his head.


 Noctambulant's particular "evidence" is an article by Dawson. Dawson is not necessary concerned with even arguing agaisnt Christianity per se. He's actually talking about proving the psychological Principe of connotative dissonance which is what Festinger discovered. The Festinger case is very amusing, everyone should read it. The original book is called When Prophecy fails" it was about infiltrating a flying saucer cult in the 50s, one that watched an old sci fi tv show called "captain video" to get secret codes about when the saucers were coming to save the group from an impending flood. (see an episode of Captain Video).

NoctambulantJoycean's argument is a bait and switch becuase he's actually not talking about the same things is celebrated empirical proof is talking about. The mountain of evidence that Dawson refers to is not evidence against Christianity but evidence for cognitive dissonance. That is a major principle in psychology an used in advertizing, and it is rock solid. It's just as much an argument against atheism as it is agaisnt religion.

The thing is atheist can't really be said to dispassionately and logically analyze and dismiss God arguments evidence when they have a huge psychological motive to unfairly reject it out of hand (if they didn't reject it they would have to accept that they are damned). so the more vociferously they have argued fro atheism the stronger their motive not to consider the arguemnts fairly. There are other ways in which connotative dissonance effects atheism because it effects all arguments.

That leads to the second bait and switch. The idea that there's this great fortress of facts backing atheism is based upon just this kind of deception. I'm not saying it's purposeful, this pheromone itself is probalby caused by cognitive dissonance. It's a bait and switch becuase there is no fortress of facts, there's a lose connection of self selected ideas that may or not may not really pertain to religion.Luke the cognitive dissonance evidence it's not really evidence against the resurrection.

They cannot prove that the early disciplines needed an exploitation that kept them going when the prophesy failed they have no proof that it failed. They are assuming he did not raise form the dead. They assume that based upon ideological considerations they have no proof to that effect. They make a circular argument to the effect that well since we assume he didn't they must the using CD and that means that's the way prophesy works so that disproves prophecy and prove he didn't raise form the dead: perfect circle. unfortunately it's logical circle not a hermeneutic one.

they can't prove he didn't raise from the dead and thus it's not really evidence against prophesy of the resurrection. It only becomes that when you pull the switch and replace real argument with ideological assumption.

Then we see this thinking in the way naturalism deals with all of God's activities. Noctambulant says:

Its like saying "since God as an explanation of natural disasters is an ancient claim, it is not ad hoc when theists say God caused a tsunami, even when we have clear scientific, empirically supported explanations for what caused the tsunami Knowing naturalistic causes of tsunamis is not proof God didn't cause one of them. there we have the bait and switch no 3. They use the same circular reasoning to dismiss any idea that God does anything. Becuase some naturalistic process are known and we have a self imposed ideological taboo agisnt the activity of God in the world we assume (a) all references to God's activity must be assumptions of no naturalistic process (b) knowing the naturalistic process is enough to assume God didn't do anything. That's' all the need to justify the claims that they have proved that God doesn't do anything.

the ideology of naturism and anti-supernatural work by circular reasoning.


he paper he refers to is by Lorne L. Dawson. you can see the abstract and first page here:


Meta: Dawson is not necessary concerned with even arguing agaisnt Christianity per se. He's actually talking abuot proving the psychological Principe of connotative dissonance which is what Festinger discovered.



Noct

Dealing with you is like dealing with a dishonest child. But much more frustrating.
Nowhere did I say Dawson was interested in arguing against Christianity per se. I specifically stated that I (and others) claim that the rationalizations and other ad hoc mechanisms Dawson presented evidence for in certain religious sects (including some Christian sects), applied to the behavior of Jesus' disciples after his death. 

 Meta:

yes but you contradict this very statement by the end of the post where you assert that I didn't read the paper because it disproves the res.

yes you sure as hell implied it. that's the closest thing to any kind of empiricle that I have seen you offer and you made big deal out of how you have all this empirical evidence.


NoctambulantJoycean's argument is a bait and switch becuase he's actually not talking about the same things is celebrated empirical proof is talking about. The mountain of evidence that Dawson refers to is not evidence against Christianity but evidence for cognitive dissonance. That is a major principle in psychology an used in advertizing, and it is rock solid. It's just as much an argument against atheism as it is agaisnt religion.

The thing is atheist can't really be said to dispassionately and logically analyze and dismiss God argument evidence when they have a huge psychological motive to unfairly reject it out of hand (if they didn't reject it they would have to accept that they are damned). so the more vociferously they have argued fro atheism the stronger their motive not to consider the arguemnts fairly. There are other ways in which connotative dissonance effects atheism because it effects all arguments.


Noct

Now here's how you might have responded to my argument if you had modicum of intellectually honesty or reading comprehension:

"NJ argued that these dissonance management mechanisms (especially ad hoc rationalization mechansims) were displayed by Jesus' disciple after his death. Here's some evidence from historical records written about the disciples at the time showing that this was not the case." Of course, you didn't take that route. Instead, you misconstrued my argument (as you always do to virtually every atheist I've seen you respond to). *sigh* 

 Meta:

(1) No reason to take it becuase you don't have any evidence that JC and the boys were under cognitive dissonance. you can't prove the prophesy failed. you are only assuming so because the ideology says it must have.

(2) if you did have any such evidence it was piss off the Jesus myth guys becuase it prove he existed that would be the end of that.

(3) what you are really doing is making a straw man argument. It's always a dangerous prostration to right your opponents arguments foremost. even if it's a good straw man it's still a straw man.

(4) there are two things you do with a straw man argument: you can say "this is weak I can beat it." that's what most do. you can also say "you could have argued this and thus divert attention from what was argued.

Nothing wrong with the argument I made and suggesting a straw man is not disproof of my argument.


That leads to the second bait and switch.

I will take this opportunity to point out that there's nothing personal in saying "this is a bait and switch." the best thinkers of the day use bait and switch, even though it's not a valid tactic. it is nevertheless used by the best of them. I's not an insult to say you did it. I'm sure you don't mean to say "I'm a dishonest child" in a personal way right? (sure you don't.you don't hate Christians do you? those re-education camps are meant to be fun).

The idea that there's this great fortress of facts backing atheism is based upon just this kind of deception. I'm not saying it's purposeful, this pheromone itself is probalby caused by cognitive dissonance. It's a bait and switch becuase there is no fortress of facts, there's a lose connection of self selected ideas that may or not may not really pertain to religion.Luke the cognitive dissonance evidence it's not really evidence against the resurrection.

They cannot prove that the early disciplines needed an explaination that kept them going when the prophesy failed they have no proof that it failed. They are assuming he did not raise form the dead. They assume that based upon ideological considerations they have no proof to that effect. They make a circular argument to the effect that well since we assume he didn't they must the using CD and that means that's the way prophesy works so that disproves prophecy and prove he didn't raise form the dead: perfect circle. unfortunately it's logical ciricule not a hermeneutic one.

they can't prove he didn't raise from the dead and thus it's not really evidence against prophesy of the resurrection. It only becomes that when you pull the switch and replace real argument with ideological assumption.
Then we see this thinking in the way naturalism deals with all of God's activities. Noctambulant says:

Knowing naturalistic causes of tsunamis is not proof God didn't cause one of them. there we have the bait and switch no 3. They use the same circular reasoning to dismiss any idea that God does anything. Becuase some naturalistic process are known and we have a self imposed ideological taboo agisnt the activity of God in the world we assume (a) all references to God's activity must be assumptions of no naturalistic process (b) knowing the naturalistic process is enough to assume God didn't do anything. That's' all the need to justify the claims that they have proved that God doesn't do anything.the ideology of naturism and anti-supernatural work by circular reasoning.

Noct

If you're really arguing that we can't use Occam's razor to rule God out as an explanation for phenomena N once we have empirical evidence of a purely natural causal explanation for N, then I would again suggest you enroll in your local community college's epistemology course and their philosophy of science course.

Meta:
Any  knowledge you possess is always already gong to be contingent. that is a priori the case. it must be so, because it's about nature.. You can never possess knowledge that God is not necessary becuase by definition God is necessary. you can say we don't need to appeal to God to show how the universe came to be but even that is not using the term "necessary" in the same sense as Occam's razor.

Moreover scinece does not have that kind of evidence Nowhere in modern science is any kind of proof that we don't need God. Half the theories of phsyics today are conjecture with no empirical basis.


Noct

None of what you said above addresses the content of Dawson's paper nor argues that the disciples of Jesus did not display the dissonance management mechanisms in question.

 Meta:

yes it did. I read the paper nothing in it says "this is a proof that Jesus dint' raise form the dead." It's about the nature of and modern state of the theory fo Cog Dis not a disproof of religion. you are doing the B and S again. you giving us the promise "I have empirical proof" but you don't because it's not proof about the right things. You have no proof of any kind to show that JC and the boys exhibited any kind of CD. If you had that you wold have proof already that the res didn't' happen you dont' have that. if you did you wouldn't need Festinger.


Noct

I'm beginning to doubt you even read the paper. 

Meta:

YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AGAINST the RES!

(1) you are argue from sign

(2) you are asserting that because the article is about empirical evidence and it could be used to infer that the res failed then it must be empirical evidence against the res. that is argument from the consequent and argument from sign.

Noct

Maybe you're intimidated by long pages of text and prefer pretty colors and images. If so, then check out ProfMTH's Youtube series "Did the Disciple dies for a lie?" Maybe you can actually follow along with his argument since you can't seem to fairly present my own argument without straw-manning my claims. 

 Meta:

Isolate the quote and quote it where he proves the prophesy failed in the first place?

and show me a quote where hey say "I am specifically arguing against the resurrection."

btw you also forgot to answer the bit bout CD being applicable to atheists. that means you don't have a special proof against the res all you are doing is making a general application of a principle that we can all use.

in short you have proved nothing.