Claisic Stupid Atheist Trick

This was on CARM this morning. Apparently this guy is serous:

Originally Posted by Too View Post

The link below is a picture of earth from our most remote space vehicle. It is a picture of a tiny tiny fragment of space where they earth is a single dot in that tiny fragment.

http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/pale_blue_dot.htm

The next link shows you what you are when represented as a single pixel out of 6.5 billion pixels.

http://www.royalsapien.com/pop1/

Now a single action and decision from the millions you make during your lifetime is yet another dot of millions of dots.

This is what a god that created the universe would experience of any action or prayer of yours.

Do you really think that a single action of yours, will be seen, judged and in any way be important to a god that sees your actions as a speck amongst specks amongst specks amongst specks..

Do you understand the absolute arrogance of thinking that what you think or do would be of any important to a supreme being?

Live your life so you can be proud of it, as it is you that has sole ownership of it, and it is only you that will know enough of it to judge it.

My answer:

ahahahhah that's like saying 'O well I went outside and I didn't see no Gawd up in the sai. Thar can't be no big Gawd up thar! I don't see none!"

What makes you think God has eyes and has to use Google earth to "see"? what makes you God needs to see?

They really are like children. The just stead fastly refuse to read any theology so the first impressions they have of child like religious people are the impressions they will always work from.

I am always highly suspicious when I see that charge that we are so arrogant for thinking we would be noticed by God. That's almost as arrogant as science. But It tells me they are with self loathing.

The Prisim Effect

It was amazing to hear .Daniel C.Dennett discussing his recent work Breaking the Spell, on the Charlie Rose show, he suonded so much like the run of the mill atheist on a message board. I was stuck by the fact that there seemed little difference in what he ws saying and what the atheists on CARM say everyday. It struck me that I answer the very arguments he's making almost every day. But he writes a book about them and its' a big deal. One of the major arguments that I consider to be a major misconception is the idea that since there are so many different religions and they are unique, then there can't be just one of them that's right. Of course, they can't all be right, so they must all be wrong. Does that follow logically? Do the atheists on CARM care? Does Dennett care?

Right or wrong He extends the reasoning, so many different views of God, they must all be wrong too. Why? Well because there are a lot of them. Christianity must be wrong as well because there are many Christian denominations. What's really strange is that normally these people embrace diversity and defend the notion that we don't have to all see thins alike. And yet, I guess we do. Why can't one particular view be right and the others all wrong? The reasoning escapes me, it has something to do with "so many see it differently." Would these great scientific minds allow themselves to this way otherwise? If I pointed out that 90% of the people in the world believe in some kind of God, and the vast majority always have,so there must be a God because "so many do see it that way," what would hey say to that? They would fall all over themselves telling me how futile is the appeal to popularity, how it's a fallacy and how logical people don't think that way. So why can't it be that one view of God is right and the other are all wrong? Search me. According to Dennette that's the case.

That doesn't bother me though, because I have it covered either way. In my view God is beyond our understand it. That makes it easy to know which view of God is right;none of them are. None of them are and all of them are. We experience God at the mystical level, beyond word, thought,or image. The only way we can speak of anything we experience at this level is to do so analogically; that means we must encode it into cultural constructs.That's what makes view of God different. It is the differences in views of God that makes religions different. They are all get at the same realty beyond the analogies of culture, and trying to encode that in cultural constructs that are limited by time and place.

As with the prism, the effect of this cultural constructivism is to bring out different aspects of the divine/human experience: just as the prism brings out different colors of the em band. Through the prism of cultural constructs `mystical experience is broken down into the colored shades of culturally bound understanding. This is what confuses the Dennett type of atheist. Not knowing the experience of the Divine, not having had any contact with that which they disparage, they decide that the colors are far more important as marks of seperation and difference than they as diversity in unity.

Now of course one might bring up the fact that as a Christian I believe there is something special about my tradition. Of course I do, but I also grant the same right to other; the Moslim believes his tradition is special, the hindu privilageds her tradition. That is not unreasonable, it is only unreasonable when we start to use such differences to devide and as marks of supiriority rather than using them to bring together discussion and discourse and to build understanding. World culture has evolved, in some cases for worse, in some cases for the better. We have built bridges and people are crossing them all the time. When I did some Masters work in hisory of ideas (I never got the masters it was commuited into Ph.D. work and i changed topics) I had a study that said that out of British colonoiaism and American advertizing in Japan bouth counties had developed enough of a westernized style of self to make psychological testing in both places demonstrate a strong similarity to the West. Take that as a warning or as a mark of progress, in either case it seems to be the case that we are evovling into a world culture. I do not think we will a one world culture, or a one world governemnt or religion. I hope not. I would to preserve diverity. I wouldn't want to see everyone in the world be like me.

Perhaps as a Christain I should wish that all would find Christ, but I hope the Buddhists find him in a Buddhist way and Moslim in a molsim way, if that makes any sense. I am aware that Moslims already honor Jesus in their tradition. In no way is the diversity that we find in world religions indicative of any sort of falsehood of the divine. In fact I would be worried that if they were all too much alike that some form of hegemony was crowding out the truth

Are Atheist Well Educated?

An article on about.com claims that atheist are well educated. I contend that the sort of atheist who rants about the stupidity of theology, who is equally alarmed by philosophy and liberal arts, are not well educated, they tend to lack any sort of understanding of arts and humanities. They are only well educated in science and in computers and in things that deal with making money, but not thoughtful contemplative studies that make for deep thinking about the nature of the universe.




He starts his attack on the intelligence of Theologians by using the wrong word for them. Then he goes on to demonstrate they are so very stupid by linking to journal of theology that he finds particularly stupid. He uses the Australian EJournal of Theology Not particularly a major source.

And read through a number of the articles, but they are all the same. Each author simply puts forward their own views, without any reference to research or evidence to support their points.

Even accepting that the subject matter doesn't really lend itself to evidence, most of this stuff just looks like shameless invention.

I think the biggest paradox in reading this rubbish is that for authors who must (by nature) start with a premise that there is a deity, they don't appear to take any backward step in presuming to know the mind & motives of their particular deity. Wouldn't that in itself be the height of arrogance?

Anyhow. From my point of view if you cut and paste "invisible pink unicorn" everywhere they refer to the deity in question, the material doesn't seem to loose any of it's argumentative or logical value, which is to say, almost zero.

But, maybe I'm reading the wrong authors.

So, any theist out there who thinks they can point an atheist to a piece of writing by a theologian that would challenge my thinking please do. I'm really not up for reading entire books at this point, so an article available on the internet would be good, but books if it must be.

Over to you, internets..!

A Christian looking at the same material had this to say:

Envar:

I took a look at the Australian journal the OP linked to. After browing through an article or three I was forced to conclude that you were very unfamiliar with any journals in the humanities.

I found substantiations based on well-established concepts with special meaning in the humanities (mimesis, sacraments, Logos, Other), well-known previous authors (Buber, Barth, Levinas), models (even a proposed equation system drawn from economics!), qualifications that negate their supposed "presumption" ("I propose", "The following is based on Mr. X's ideas") etc.

I really find it difficult to see how the OP could be so obtuse. Has he taken a look at papers in art, musicology, philosophy etc. lately? Given current fashions (which admittedly have much for one to object to) they are about on par with this kind of theology.

Perhaps you should start by looking up basics like "Eucharist", "Apostolic Succession", "Barth", "Luther", "Council of Chalcedon", "scholasticism" etc. on Wikipedia first. Primary texts are obviously not for you.

Of course we don't know if he's carping because the things discussed aren't "proved" or because hey discuss things he doesn't agree with or believe in. What exactly is his beef? would he find a regular academic journal of any subject "stupid" and too tedious to read? is he saying these things because he just doesn't know what a real intellect discussion looks like? The journal he picked on is not stupid. It's not a major source of theology but its' not bad.

I think he's just carping and one could slip in an academic journal on Greek and show him a brilliant article on diacritical markings in Homer and he would say it was stupid because he just doesn't know anything. How many such people are carping against theology on atheist messages boards all over the net?

That's just one guy but let's examine the claims in the about. come article:

It is true that studies have repeatedly shown a correlation between atheism and education levels. The more education a person receives — especially in the sciences — the less religious they become and the less likely they are to remain theists. The exact nature of the relationship between atheism and education is a matter of dispute, but the existence of some sort connection is clear and not really debated.

That's not true. The scientific degree bearers that believe in God are 45%. That statement by the atheist in about.com is referring to a survey of the national academy of sciences several years ago (around 99) which was terrible and totally unscholarly because the questions were designed to compare fundamentalist belief with no alternative but atheism. So there was no room on the survey for a liberal sort of belief in a process theology god for example.

It is also true that higher education levels generally correspond with better income — the more education a person has, the more they will earn over their lifetime. The connection between education and income is even less controversial than that between education and atheism, but it suggests that in America, atheists tend to be a bit better educated and probably tend to make more money that the average. Usually, it is assumed that people with more education and money are privileged, not the victims of bigotry and discrimination. So what's going on?

There is no correlation between education levels and atheism.

this is on Doxa, my website it's originally taken from an atheist website that has for years argued that atheists have higher IQ's. I tear that up and tear this up.

STUDENT BODY COMPARISONS1. Rose Goldsen, 1952

Percentage of students who believe in a divine god: Harvard 30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35; Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43; Weslyan 43; Michigan 45; Fisk 60; Texas 62; North Carolina 68.2. National Review Study, 1970

Percentage of students who believe in a Spirit or Divine God: Reed 15; Brandeis 25; Sarah Lawrence 28; Williams 36; Stanford 41; Boston U. 41; Yale 42; Howard 47; Indiana 57; Davidson 59; S. Carolina 65; Marquette 77.

[O look what happens here! The scores go way up for God, especially at S. Carolina and Marquette why is that? And all the Ivy league and big name schools its near 50%, is this really evidence? Why a greater percentage of believers at Harvard and Yale than at UT? Better schools?]

Professors Represent the Same proportion of Religious Belief as General Public.
Students in the first year of collage or last year of high school will be more rebellious, since they are testing the limits of their new found adulthood for the first time. This means they may tend to reject their parent's teachings, but might come back to them in latter life. It might also be that the even ore intelligent cream of the crop will go on to graduate school and these will tend to be more religious than the overall student body of undergraduate school. In fact this is borne out by the stats on religious belief among professors in colleges and universities. We can assume that professors are a more highly educated and more intelligent group than the general public. Yet religious belief among professors reflects that of the general public, overwhelmingly believes in God.

Sociology 265--News Articles
Natalie Angier
1997
SURVEY OF SCIENTISTS FINDS STABILITY OF FAITH IN GOD

c.1997 N.Y. Times News Service

"Several recent surveys of American college professors, ..., show that professors are almost as likely to express a belief in God as are Americans as a whole."



Which means that this large group of more intelligent people reflects the general population, the vast majority of which believe in God. So why doesn't this mean that when you look across the board, not at special interests that are more likely to be materialist, most intelligent people believe in God?

This fact also confirms my previous argument on page one, that we could expect many or most of these kids to become beleivers latter in life. After all, we find that bright kids have a high consentration of atheists in late highschool and than early college, but we also find that professors accorss the board tend to reflect the religious attitudes of the general population. That tells us that with more education, age, maturity, and settaling down, more intelligent people tend to resume their faith.

Just for the thrill of it, here's my list of recent nobel science winners who are Christians:

The scientific fraternity conducted a poll and found that on any given Sunday 46% of Ph.D. holders in science can be found in church. That compares with 47% for the general population (in Alan Lightman Origins: The Lives and World of Modern Cosmologists (Harvard University press, 19990).

Fritz Shafer, nominated for Nobel Prize in Chemistry, University of Georgia, himself a Christian: "it is very rare that a physical scientists is truly an atheist."Martin Rees at Cambridge: "The possibility of life as we know it depends upon a few basic values which are constants. And it is in some aspect remarkably sensitive to their heir numerical values. Nature does exhibit remarkable coincidences."

Charlie Towns, Nobel prize winner: "The question of science seems to be unanswered if we explore from science alone. Thus I believe there is a need for some metaphysical or religious explanation. I believe in the concept of God an in his existence."

Arthur Schewhow, Nobel prize winner from Stanford, identifies himself as a Christian, "We are fortunate to have the Bible which tells us so much about God in widely accessible terms."

John Pokingham, theoretical physicist at Cambridge, left physics to become a minister. "I believe that God exists and has made himself known in Jesus Christ."

The world's greatest observational cosmologist Alan Sandage, Caregie observatories, won a prize given by Swedish parliament equivalent to Nobel prize (there is no Nobel prize for cosmology) became a Christian after being a scientist, "The nature of God is not found in any part of science, for that we must turn to the scriptures."

In a lecture by Fritz Shafer from a website by Leadership University:http://www.leaderu.com/realri9501/bingbang2.html

_____________________________________________

The last part of that web site about atheists beign smarter is very confussing indeed. He goes on to say:

"This is the result even when the researchers are Christian conservatives themselves. One such researcher is George Gallup. Here are the results of a Fall 1995 Gallup poll:

Percentage of respondents who agreed with the following statements:

Religion is Religion can "very important "answer all or most Respondents in their life" of today's problems" ------------------------------------------------------------ Attended college 53 percent 58 percent
No college 63 65
Income over $50,000 48 56
$30,000 - $50,000 56 62
$20,000 - $30,000 56 60
Under $20,000 66 66

I don't' know why he includes the income levels, but it seems that he is showing that more people who say that religion is not very important go to college than those who say it is important. But that could also be explained by the fact of early adulthood rebellion. He never presents any stats on life long commitment to atheism. And how does he explain the fact that taken across the board college professors reflect religious belief the same as the general population? "Why does this correlation exist?" He says, "The first answer that comes to mind is that religious beliefs tend to be more illogical or incoherent than secular beliefs, and intelligent people tend to recognize that more quickly." But wait, no they aren't! Just because he can't read the works of the great theologians and think rationally about them doesn't mean they aren't rational. This is mere opinion, mere propaganda!

"The simplest and most parsimonious explanation is that religion is a set of logical and factual claims, and those with the most logic and facts at their disposal are rejecting it largely on those grounds." But that shows total and complete theological naivete. What he's actually demonstrated is the opposite of his thesis in his own analysis. Why can't he read the theologians? Why can't he buy a book and find out what religion is? Why doesn't he consult the works of comparative religionists? Religion is not reducible to a mere set of propositions or of "factual claims." There is no correlation between intelligence and religious belief or lack there of. The majority of people are of average intelligence and the majority are religious. Atheism is "in" for young people in teenage rebellion so any comparison will be like comparing the chess club with the rest of the student body. There can be some very bright kids not in the chess club, perhaps even the brightest, but in comparing the chess club to the student body at large the chess club will obviously seem to be much brighter proportionally. IN fact it may well be but what does that prove?

The whole concept that the truth of the case can be decided by which camp has the brightest members is idiotic. But his site does nothing to prove that atheists are smarter. All he really proves is that at a certain time in life more adventurous kids are more likely to expediment, and that materialistically minded people are drawn to reductionistic occupations.


Next: Page 3

circualr reasoning at the heart of naturalism

I have always contended that naturalism, the idea that the natural world is all there, is based upon circular reasoning. It works like this, all evidence for anything beyond the nature is discounted on the premise that there can't be anything beyond the natural. Then the idea that there can't be anything beyond the natural is supported by the "fact" that there is no proof for anything beyond it. But the only reason there is no proof is because it's already been ruled out by the assumption which is nothing more than begging the question. Even when empirical evidence is presented it doesn't matter because the skeptics just poo poo the evidence based upon the question begging assumptions.

The initial context is that I had given an exposition on the making of the Gospels in which I said they are redacted. But he said I'm white washing it becuase I don't say that redaction = being totally false lies garbage ect.

Here's how this played out on CARM the other day. this could actually be a textbook case.





Dale on carm

http://www.christiandiscussionforums.org/v/showthread.php?p=4874846&posted=1#post4874846
Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post

why would it be whitewashing if I say the whole is redacted?

Dale:

It’s whitewashing because you are obviously trying to downplay the zombies of matthew 27 because it obviously didn’t happen.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
If I am saying much more than [that]


Dale:

Remember that this started when I simply requested, in a thread about archaeological evidence for Jesus, that I be informed should any contemporary chronicles recording the zombie incident turn up. It seems like a perfectly reasonable request to me. You certainly wouldn’t be so agitated about it if there was any such evidence.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
since you don't know anything about theology or textual criticism you don't know anything about liberal belief so what exactly am I gullible about? Why would you think that, not knowing anything about my beliefs?


Dale:

The only thing I claimed to know about your beliefs was that you weren’t a fundie which is evident from your writing. You don’t need any degrees in theology or specialist knowledge in textual criticism to confidently say that if, and again I say if, somebody believes that the dead have climbed out of their graves and walked into Jerusalem then they are definitely far too gullible for their own good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post

how do you know it was an eclipse? that's ruled out by the time year.

Dale:

I don’t know anything about it except that an eclipse is a far more likely explanation for any alleged darkness at noon.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post

look at the circular nature of your reasoning. I say "maybe they did talk about it but we don't have the records because we don' have a lot or records, here's a reason to think maybe that's true because talk about this other thing (darkness at noon)." So you decide that means they talk about one and not the other. what part of "we don't' have records" can you not understand?
(in other words I'm saying because they talked aobut the darnkess at noon there's a chance they talked about the resurrectees but we just don't have the records).




Dale:

What part of the absurdity of trying to assert that alleged traces of historical records noting an eclipse is evidence in support of a truly sensational extraordinary event which went unremarked upon do you not understand.

(Of course I didn't use the one as evidence of the other, just as an example of something atheits always say we don' thave (record of the darkenss) but we actaully do have it, and due to the time of year of Passover it would not have been a eclipse}.




Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post

cant you see how illogical and chaotic your thinking is?


what does it mean to be "telling" If something is not "evidence? what does "telling" mean apart from evidence? It can be telling if your bigoted and your willing to let the lack of evidence feed your suspicions> It can be "telling" if you are obsessed with hate and the evidence in everything.

Dale:

Alleged traces of historical records noting an eclipse but a truly sensational extraordinary event which went unremarked upon! Read that again…a truly sensational extraordinary event which nobody but author of the Book of Matthew made a record of. I acknowledge, again, that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. But the fact that there is nothing is perfectly in keeping with the obvious conclusion that this ridiculous zombie incident didn’t happen in the first place. Your charges of bigotry and hatred as being my problem here are equally ridiculous. You really must try and remain calm when confronted by people who aren’t cowed by your presumption that everybody must agree with you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
I bet you pride yourself on being open minded. it's really sad how self deceived we can be.

Dale:
I don’t necessarily think it’s a matter of pride but I do consider myself open minded but not to the point that my brains are going to fall out.


you haven't said anything is wrong wtih the evidence. you just assume it can't be true a prori. I did point out thee is evdience of the darkness and it can't be an eclipse

l-aid!!

O atheism is free thinking hu? O yea the free thikers.

Here's what a free thinker thiks:


this just porves that atheism is nothing more than a bunch of ignorant illiterate scum who hate learning banding together to destroy books and knowledge.
This illiterate atheist on CARM is answer my questions and arguments.

Quote:Meta
why would you think it's useless? (theology)

Bozo:Because its only purpose is the perpetuation of theology? Literature in general is not a particularly useful field of study; theology is simply literature distilled down to the study of a single story.

Quote:Meta
The first question I have to ask you is, don't you think learning foolish anyway?

Bozo
No.

He says no but of course we soon see the only kind of learning the would allow is pragmatic things that make money.

Quote:Meta
You probably think if you don't go to work making over 100 thousand in the first year right out of college then you wasted your education right?

If I did, I would have studied different subjects in college. No, money is not the measure of utility.

Quote:
I'm betting you have never read a book unless you had to
I'm betting you need to retake an English course.

You are, by the way, incorrect in your assumptions. If I was adverse to reading, I would have certainly picked fields other than political science and computer science--both fields require quite a lot of reading (one philosophy, history, and statistics, the other lines of code and equations).

of course his idea of learning is pragmatic fields.

Quote:
you think novels are boring and would never read one.

You fancy yourself a mindreader, I see. To be more specific, I dislike fiction. It's generally rather contrived, and far less interesting than real life. This might well explain my position regarding theology.

look at the philistine. he has 0 impulse for art. this is the sort of non thinking anti-intellectual that atheism breeds.

Quote:
you don't enjoy the act of thinking

Clearly. My distaste for "thinking" perfectly explains why I entered two fields of study that both require quite a lot of thinking. That might also explain why I capitalize the first letter of every sentence, and why I actually type out all of the necessary words in a sentence. This certainly requires less thought than someone who deemed it best to study only a single book, and other people's opinions on said book.

nothing requires as much thinking as theology and philosphy. they are so complex you have n concept.



Quote:
and you have never experienced the intellectual hight.

Clearly, you've reached a towering intellectual "hight", yourself.

that is quite right I sure as hell did.

Quote:
did you even know there is one?

You've given me an entirely new definition of intellectual "hight".

clever.


Quote:
It's probably news to you that you can actually feel high when you thought deeply about important things for a long time.
My, you state that so eloquently.

Quote:
so in saying that any sort of education is useless we really ahve to ask what is your definition of "useless?"
You are the one who states that "any sort of education is useless". I was referring specifically to theology, though I feel similarly about literature in general. It's not a terribly rigorous discipline. Even by the relatively loose measure of the social sciences, literature isn't rigorous.

Quote:
But since probably money it might interest you to know that I know theology professors who live in the South of France and drive Italian sports cars.
I know a bus driver who lives in a quarter of a million dollar house. What's your point? You're the one pushing this straw man about income.

Quote:
ah! not so useless now is it?
It's just as useless.

Quote:
another thing do You think that I seminary so I could argue with idiots?
No, I think you "seminaried" because you couldn't handle anything more rigorous but felt compelled to attend college.

Quote:
do you think I care about converts stupid peolpew ho don't' give a rat's assa bout truth?
Anyone who cares about truth avoids philosophy like the plague.
BrokenDoors is online now Add to BrokenDoors's Reputation Report Post Reply With Quote

my answer:

you've just proved the idiotioc and anti-thinking aspect of atheism. this is the best evidence so far that atheism is nothing but a hate grouip. it's practicaly am way. just crass unthinking unleanred hyhpocortres who are afarid to learn.


O yea us free thiers, we hate learning because we are free thinkers. down with books and learning learning is only important if I make money,.

atheism is for stupid people. it's for people who don't like knowledge.
__________________
Metacrock

It's a classic

I did a post on CARM sunday which was in two parts. It was real long. NO one answered after over 50 people had spoken up (you can see the content of it on Metacrock's blog I posted it there as a blog post). So after a while I chided them for not answering (this was after a full day). I said "hey come on" so this guy puts up this:

Maconnor34

I think that he is going a little off-kilter. His thread "NT is good evidence" consists of him talking to himself, extensively.

This is yet another reason that I am not a christian. Instead of actually conversing with people in a dialectic, the christian can be reduced to didactically preaching to himself because he can not understand the world. It is really quite sad and frightening that a person can loose touch with reality so much and build an artificial world around themselves.

What good is it to build a heaven for yourself if you are the only person in it?

Great reason for not being a Christian. Notice he's assuming my chiding the atheist to post is talking to myself. He assuming part II is arguing against part one which clearly its' not, it's clearly reaffirming it and giving a specificity explaination.

This whole post is typical atheist hate group response, attack the personality.


several atheists actually speak up and tell the guy he's being unfair.

Hatsoff is the best of these I think

I have no idea what you're talking about. This is a discussion board for matters relating to Christianity. Metacrock posted arguments aimed at a significant subset of atheists, the Jesus mythers. His points are relevant, and most are compelling.

this is from an Evangelical named Angst:

Do you think that bringing down others makes yourself feel or look intelligent?

so to this one he says:

I do feel intelligent.
It doesn't necessarily make me look intelligent.

By replying to my thread instead of Metacrock's, you have voted for me as more interesting and deserving of your attention.

And this goes to all here. Why aren't you posting in Metacrock's thread? Because his arguments don't make sense. And I would say that his theism is a cause of that.

So in other words, even though the content of your comments says I'm wrong, the fact that you posted on my thread means you agree with me over Metacrock anyway!???

I call this "never say die." It's a classic, it's so typical of many atheists just count everything in their favor.

He's still at it. he says;

Originally Posted by maconnor34 View Post
Yep, and people are still talking here and not on your thread for 12 hours now. Nobody cares what you think because you don't present rational and cogent arguments.

You are commenting here because nobody will come to you there. Awwwwwww.

incredible he really doesn't understand about content.

Atheist and Cognative Dissonance

CD is the concept first developed by Leon Festinger when he studied the flying Soucer cult he wrote of in the book When Prophesy Fails (early 50s). Some of the major people in that cult went to become some of the major people in dionetics.

Story:

The cult was centered around a woman who did automatic writing. He received a message that the world would end. The group wound up watching an early sci fi tv show called "Captain Video and his Video Rangers" to recieve message from the saucer people (here is a link to an actual episode of Captain Video

http://www.archive.org/details/Capta...d_By_Yugi_Moto)


Festinger


Festinger heard of the cult and as he was writing his dissertation in psychology he joined the cult as a participant observer. He observed that over time many predictions were made and every time a prediction failed to come true contrary to what one would think the members became even more committed. These were major predictions. People were giving away their houses, and giving away their cars, they were ready the saucers to come and take them to save them from the end. Instead of saying "wow I sold my house and quite my job to wait for the space people and they didn't come man I was sucker, never again will I do this!" NO! they did not! They become more committed. They made bigger comiitents they believed more passionately.

The book is really worth reading as old as it is, it's hilarious all the stuff they did they seem like nuts. But they were normal middle class people and Festinger developed a whole theory of psychology based upon their antics.

The principle of CD as accepted and became very important in advertising. Advertisers used it throughout the 60s and probably still use it now. The old slogan "wouldn't you really rather have a Buick" is an example of that use.

Our minds seek equilibrium, peace. We want to feel ok. When we make big commitments we have a sense of disequilibrium (dissonance) because there'sa conflict, did we do the right thing? So to find equilibrium again we become more committed to our choice. Even if it proves wrong we still go n with it more passionately becasue it gives us equilibrium. I didn't really screw up it will still prove to be true.

Thomas Kuhn's theory of the Pradigm shift proves true at this point becasue the fine disequilibrium is reached when there are too many anomalies and the paradigm can't hold or can't absorb them. The paradigm shifts and we commit to the paradigm even more than to the old.

I was an atheist when I read Festinger (in my undergrad days back in the 70s) and I said 'this is disproves Christianity. This is what happened with the resurrection of Jesus." In fact Festinger actually wrote about that. What I could not see at the time was that it applies to atheism too. Atheists are human, they have human psychology, why they escape DC when it's a basic norm of human psychology?

Atheists who are raised in a religious environment and then grow up with a strong fear of hell and then discord that belief have to become totally committed to atheism to stifle their fear of hell. Even if you don't sit around biting your nails agonizing over hell, even if you have reached a level of maturity where you can see that hell is not true because the concept is too childish,there will still be a sense of fear and guilt in the back of your mind; I threw off the things Mom and Dad taught me they are ashamed, if hell is real I will go there, all submerged in the unconscious.

This is why when biased concepts of atheism are disproved clearly and with a huge truck load of data (such as the idea that religion is mental illness) some atheists just refuse to even consider the data. They don't even have to be aware of making a choice it's just an automatic thing, the need for equilibrium creates grater commitment to the choice even if evidence creates a doubt.


I have no solution. I don't know what can be done to cheat psychology, but I think becoming aware of the process would be the first step in overcoming it. Both sides should overcome it because it hinders logical decision making. I don't know if belief in God or rejection thereof could be a truly passionless logical process. But I think the more self aware we are the better off we are.

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Metacrock