Debate: belief in God rationally warranted? Metacrock vs. Michael Hill

First Affirmative Constructive: religious belief is rationally warranted; Metacrock Joe Hinman).

Decision Making Paradigm:

God Corrolate: The co-determinate is like the Derridian trace, or like a fingerprint. It's the accompanying sign that is always found with the thing itself. In other words, like trailing the invisible man in the snow. You can't see the invisible man, but you can see his footprints, and wherever he is in the snow his prints will always follow.

We cannot produce direct observation of God, but we can find the "trace" or the co-determinate, the effects of God in the world.The only question at that point is "How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine? The answer is in the argument below. Here let us set out some general parameters:

We can set up criteria based upon what we would expect from encounter with the divine:

A. Life Transforming and vital in a positive life=affirming sense

B. It would give us a sense of the transcendent and the divine.

C. No alternate or naturalistic causality could be proven

These criteria are based upon the writings of the great mystics and religious thinkers of history, especially in the Christian tradition, and distilled into /theory by W.T. Stace. The theory is verified and validated by several hundred studies using various methodologies all of them published in peer reviewed journals. The following argument is based upon the findings of these studies. All of this, the studies, the methods used, Stace's theory, these studies and their methodologies are discussed in depth in The Trace of God: a Rational Warrant for Belief by Joseph Hinman, (all proceeds go to non profit) available on Amazon



Read much about the book on the Trace of God blog..

Argument:

(1) The affects and effects of mystical experience are real in that they are measurably transformative in a positive sense.

(2)These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.

(3)Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explanations and the affects are real we should assume that they are genuine experiences of something transcendent of our own minds.

(4)Since mystical experience is usually experience of something, the Holy, the sacred, or some sort of greater transcendent reality we should assume that the origin of the experience is rooted in transcendent reality.

(5)Since mystical experience is usually about the divine we can assume a divine origin.

This fulfills the criteria for the trace: therefore, e are warranted in asserting that mystical experience is the trace of God, and this gives us warrant for belief in God.

Analysis:

Real Affects of Mystical Experience Imply Co-determinate

A. Study and Nature of Mystical Experiences

Mystical experience is only one aspect of religious experience, but I will focus on it in this argument. Most other kinds of religious experience are difficult to study since they are more subjective and have less dramatic results. But mystical experience can actually be measured empirically in terms of its affects, and can be compared favorably to other forms of conscious states.

1) Primarily Religious

Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integrationm (unpublished paper 1992 by Jayne Gackenback

http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

Gackenback website is Spiritwatch
Quotes:

"The experience of pure consciousness is typically called "mystical". The essence of the mystical experience has been debated for years (Horne, 1982). It is often held that "mysticism is a manifestation of something which is at the root of all religions (p. 16; Happold, 1963)." The empirical assessment of the mystical experience in psychology has occurred to a limited extent."

2) Defining charactoristics.

[Gackenback]

"In a recent review of the mystical experience Lukoff and Lu (1988) acknowledged that the "definition of a mystical experience ranges greatly (p. 163)." Maslow (1969) offered 35 definitions of "transcendence", a term often associated with mystical experiences and used by Alexander et al. to refer to the process of accessing PC."

Lukoff (1985) identified five common characteristics of mystical experiences which could be operationalized for assessment purposes. They are:

1. Ecstatic mood, which he identified as the most common feature;
2. Sense of newly gained knowledge, which includes a belief that the mysteries of life have been revealed;
3. Perceptual alterations, which range from "heightened sensations to auditory and visual hallucinations (p. 167)";
4. Delusions (if present) have themes related to mythology, which includes an incredible range diversity and range;
5. No conceptual disorganization, unlike psychotic persons those with mystical experiences do NOT suffer from disturbances in language and speech.
It can be seen from the explanation of PC earlier that this list of qualities overlaps in part those delineated by Alexander et al.

3)Studies use Empirical Instruments.

Many skeptics have argued that one cannot study mystical experince scientifically. But it has been done many times, in fact there are a lot of studies and even empirical scales for measurement.

(Ibid.)

Quote:

"Three empirical instruments have been developed to date. They are the Mysticism Scale by Hood (1975), a specific question by Greeley (1974) and the State of Consciousness Inventory by Alexander (1982; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987). Hood's (1975) scale was developed from conceptual categories identified by Stace (1960). Two primary factors emerged from the factor analysis of the 32 core statements. First is a general mysticism factor, which is defined as an experience of unity, temporal and spatial changes, inner subjectivity and ineffability. A second factor seems to be a measure of peoples tendency to view intense experiences within a religious framework. A much simpler definition was developed by Greeley (1974), "Have you ever felt as though you were very close to a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?" This was used by him in several national opinion surveys. In a systematic study of Greeley's question Thomas and Cooper (1980) concluded that responses to that question elicited experiences whose nature varied considerably. Using Stace's (1960) work they developed five criteria, including awesome emotions; feeling of oneness with God, nature or the universe; and a sense of the ineffable. They found that only 1% of their yes responses to Greeley's question were genuine mystical experiences. Thus Hood's scale seems to be the more widely used of these two broad measures of mysticism. It has received cross cultural validation" (Holm, 1982; Caird, 1988).

4) Incidence.

(Ibid.)

Quote:

"Several studies have looked at the incidence of mystical experiences. Greeley (1974) found 35% agreement to his question while Back and Bourque (1970) reported increases in frequency of these sorts of experiences from about 20% in 1962 to about 41% in 1967 to the question "Would you say that you have ever had a 'religious or mystical experience' that is, a moment of sudden religious awakening or insight?" Greeley (1987) reported a similar figure for 1973".

"The most researched inventory is the State of Consciousness Inventory (SCI; reviewed in Alexander, Boyer, and Alexander, 1987). The authors say "the SCI was designed for quantitative assessment of frequency of experiences of higher states of consciousness as defined in Vedic Psychology (p. 100)."

"In this case items were constructed from first person statements of practitioners of that meditative tradition, but items were also drawn from other authority literatures. Additional subscales were added to differentiate these experiences from normal waking experience, neurotic experience, and schizophrenic experience. Finally, a misleading item scale was added. These authors conceptualize the "mystical" experience as one which can momentarily occur in the process of the development of higher states of consciousness. For them the core state of consciousness is pure consciousness and from it develops these higher states of consciousness.

Whereas most researchers on mystical experiences study them as isolated or infrequent experiences with little if any theoretical "goal" for them, this group contextualizes them in a general model of development (Alexander et al., 1990) with their permanent establishment in an individual as a sign of the first higher state of consciousness. They point out that "during any developmental period, when awareness momentarily settles down to its least excited state, pure consciousness [mystical states] can be experienced (p. 310). " In terms of incidence they quote Maslow who felt that in the population at large less than one in 1,000 have frequent "peak" experiences so that the "full stabilization of a higher stage of consciousness appears to an event of all but historic significance (p. 310)."

"Virtually all of researchers using the SCI are very careful to distinguish the practice of meditation from the experience of pure consciousness, explaining that the former merely facilitates the latter. They also go to great pains to show that their multiple correlation's of health and well-being are strongest to the transcendent experience than to the entire practice of meditation (for psychophysiological review see Wallace, 1987; for individual difference review see Alexander et al., 1987;

B. Empirical Studies show Long-Term Positive Effects of Mystical Experience

Research Summary

From Council on Spiritual Practices Website

"States of Univtive Consciousness"

Also called Transcendent Experiences, Ego-Transcendence, Intense Religious Experience, Peak Experiences, Mystical Experiences, Cosmic Consciousness. Sources:

(1) Studies Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.

Noble, Kathleen D. (1987). ``Psychological Health and the Experience of Transcendence.'' The Counseling Psychologist, 15 (4), 601-614.

Lukoff, David & Francis G. Lu (1988). ``Transpersonal psychology research review: Topic: Mystical experiences.'' Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 20 (2), 161-184.

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.

Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)

(2)Long-Term Effects

Wuthnow:

*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion

(3) Trend toward positive view among psychologists. Spiriutal Emergency MYSTICAL OR UNITIVE EXPERIENCE "Offsetting the clinical literature that views mystical experiences as pathological, many theorists (Bucke, 1961; Hood, 1974, 1976; James, 1961; Jung, 1973; Laski, 1968; Maslow, 1962, 1971; Stace, 1960; Underhill, 1955) have viewed mystical experiences as a sign of health and a powerful agent of transformation." (4) Most clinicians and clinical studies see postive. (Ibid) "Results of a recent survey (Allman, et al,. 1992) suggest that most clinicians do not view mystical experiences as pathological. Also, studies by several researchers have found that people reporting mystical experiences scored lower on psychopathology scales and higher on measures of psychological well-being than controls (Caird, 1987; Hood, 1976, 1977, 1979; Spanos and Moretti, 1988)".

Commentary on My debate with Occam

Last time I put up a link to the debate I had with Occam on CARM. I showed a few high lights. Now I'm going to give commentary on Occies last speech and show why he's wrong and why I won. That's around sounding, but I want to laud Occam for his efforts. He was a fine opponent, he made good arguments and he was a gentleman.


First speech in the debate here.


his final speech: here

0ccam

The first thing I want to point out in assessing Metacrock's case is his evidence. To paraphrase Kant, if a complex system rests on a feeble base of evidence, we can dismiss the system without bothering to go through all of its intricacies, because there cannot possibly be anything to the intricacies in that case. Now, the only evidence Metacrock has presented in this debate is the Hood survey, which, I think it is obvious, cannot possibly serve as sufficient evidence for God's existence. So, I would say I've clearly won.

That whole performance is missing the boat completely. First of all the Hood studies, which are immensely respected in their field, and empirically first rate and the strongest validated of any such scale in the world, is only secondary line of evidence. Those studies are used to back up the assertion that religious experience fit the criteria (regular, consistent, shared, navigational). The "system" of the argument is quite simple. It's not hardly a complex system, it rests upon a epistemology that is long established since early modern times, that of Descartes, Locke, Kant. The two opposing camps of rationalists and empiricists being synthesized in Kant.

The basic Cartesian principles being backed empirical studies. Then the result being understood as a reflection of the categories. But the basic argument itself is very simple, we have criteria, or desiderata, that  mark for us the basis of an epistemology. It is on that basis that we accept our experiences as valid. Certain kinds of religious experiences fit that criteria and thus we can trust hem. That's really pretty simple.

In other to prove that we must know a religious experience form a hole in the ground. That's what the m scale does by validating Stace's theory then we can know we are real mystical experiences. Though that we can know that such experiences fit the criteria. We have to know what we are studying first that's what the studies do for us. The M scale has more validation than any other such scale. I already quoted several authorities in the debate saying this.

"Factor Analysis of the mystical experience Questionnaire: A study of experiences occasioned by the Hallucinogen Psilocybin," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion PDF 
http://www.heffter.org/docs/2013pdf/Mystical%20experience%20questionnaire.pdf

"Beginning with Hood (1975), the modern empirical study of mysticism has focused on char-

acterizing mystical experiences that individuals have had across their lifetime. Hood’s Mysticism

Scale ...developed according to Stace’s (1960) framework, is the most widely used quantitative mea-sure of mystical experience. The Mysticism Scale has generally been shown to be a reliable

and cross-culturally valid measure of lifetime experiences."

I show six counties in which various studies have validated Stace by use of the M scale proving that the M Scale is a valid measurement and that Stace's theory matches what people are experiencing.


 Occam

 Metacrock claims that I haven't dealt with his claim that the belief in God meets the criteria we use to determine whether or not the external world exists. This is just false, since I've been attacking the analogy between the external world and God since the beginning of the debate. Metacrock may think that I've ignored some important details of his argument, but at best that is due to his own failure to make it clear which parts of his convoluted arguments he considers important.

But he actually misconstrued the analogy. He's ignored the improtant details that the studies show that msytical expreince is regular, consistant, shared and navigational. In short the fact that the experiences fit the criteria of epistemic judgement is proved by empirical science.




 Occam

I note that Metacrock tacitly concedes that my attack on Plantinga is successful, just as he tacitly conceded that my attack on Swinburne was successful. His concession that the two most highly regarded theistic philosophers of religion cannot defend theism is seriously damaging to the credibility of theism, as well as to the plausibility of his claim that his highly similar arguments are successful.

 He tries to evoke properly basic by asserting that I don'tk now what it is. I proved I know what it is. My argument was that this whole appraoch to attacking Plantinga and insisting that God belief must be PB (so it comes under Plantigna's arguments and thus share in his attack) is a red herring to get me off the arguments I advanced. It has nothing at all to do with my arguments and thus is not a negation of the resolution as I interpret it. He is attacking arguments I did not make so he's not participating in the debate as long as he does that. I am not obligated to defend thing that I did not put forth.



Occam

Next, Metacrock objects to my argument that religious experience should be rejected as inconsistent with our scientific knowledge on ...[following] grounds:



Meta

he never shows that religious belief is any kind of contradiction to scientific knowledge. for that to be the case scientific knowledge would have to disprove god we all know there is no such disproof. The only kind of alleged "disproof" any atheist has is absence of proof not an actual disproof.

Occam:This is seriously mistaken. I have only claimed that science has shown that religious experience is an unreliable source of knowledge, which it has, by demonstrating that the experiences of different religions contradict each other and by giving neuroscientific explanations of religious experience. Metacrock has never successfully addressed either of these points.

I answered this, fist if contradicts the above where he says RE is inconsistent with scientific knowledge but he never showed any inconsistency. Since the M scale and other such studies are scientific and they prove the validation of RE then there's no inconsistency. Now he claims he only showed that RE is unreliable, he had no such evidence. The studies show that is reliable since it is regular and consistent.

Next, Metacrock asserts that if the criteria of epistemic judgment are met by religious experience, then we are justified in accepting religious experience as a source of knowledge. But the criteria are not met, since religious experiences are neither shared, regular, nor consistent, as I have shown.

He has shown nothing of the kind. I showed they are regular and consistent becuase that's the M scale shows. They are same experiences the world over just take out the names and the doctrine the experience, what happens in it is always the same. that evidence is given in the McNamara book which I linked to. article on M scale by Hood himself that shows universal reactions.
In P, McNamar (Ed.), Where God and science meet, Vol. 3, pp. 119-138. Westport, CT: Praeger. scroll to page 119.

then comes the block on the universality argument:

Occam
He then makes the following attempts to defend his universality argument:

Meta

that obviousliy is a poor answer:

(1) not everyone has it. We all have human brain structure but we dont' all have those experiences. So they can't be the result of having a human brain structure.

(2) if just having the brain structure was the case we should expect to find that we all have the same culture and speak the same langue. we have the same brain structure. We should all have the same experiences.

(3) the aspects that are universal are aspects that are cultural and not genetic, such as cultural symbols. Arche types, such as the journey of hte hero. That's not a gene that's a cultural symbol. no link to brain structure.

(4) religion is not genetic. even Stephen Pincker says that. there is no evidence of a religious gene therefor there is no basis for the answer of human brain structure.

(5) that's deponent upon the ideology of sociobiology or it's repacked form as evolutionary psychology. social sciences dont' buy it.

 Occam

The problem with this is that it consists entirely of false claims and non sequiturs. It does not follow from the claim that we have similar brain structure that we must have similar culture and all have similar religious experiences, because I'm not positing complete similarity.

Yes it does. His claim is that similar religious experiences are due to similar brain structure. If that is the case why would the similarity end with religious experience and not extend to all experience? If it did to all experience we should have the same experiences across the board. How can it just be limited to religion? Certain religion is culture than we should we should have the same culture. Language is the basis of culture we should have the same language. If that's why we have the same religious experiences.

religion is cultural and not genetic. Because it is cultural it is not just a matter of brain structure and the experiences that pertain to it cannot be due merely to brain structure.

proof of the cultural basis for religious experience:

religion is cultural:

RELIGION, although inherent in man, borrows its expressions from the setting or milieu in which man appears. The forms through which man expresses the supernatural are all drawn from the cultural heritage and the environment known to him, and are structured according to his dominant patterns of experience.In a hunting culture this means that the main target of observation, the animal, is the ferment of suggestive influence on representations of the supernatural. This must not be interpreted as meaning that all ideas of the supernatural necessarily take animal form. First of all, spirits do appear also as human beings, although generally less frequently; the high-god, for instance, if he exists, is often thought of as a being of human appearance. Second, although spirits may manifest themselves as animals they may evince a human character and often also human modes of action.[Ake Hultkrantz, “Attitudes Toward Animals in Shashoni Indian Religion,” Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 4, No. 2. (Spring, 1970) © World Wisdom, Inc. no page listed,online archive, URL: http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/articles/browse_g.aspx?ID=131, accessed 3/21/13]

No gene for religion:

Atheist guru P.Z. Myers (who is a big named biologist) rejects it on the grounds that VMAT2 is just  "...a pump. A teeny-tiny pump responsible for packaging a neurotransmitter for export during brain activity. Yes, it's important, and it may even be active and necessary during higher order processing, like religious thought. But one thing it isn't is a 'god gene.^" "No god, and no 'god gene', either". Pharyngula.(2005-02-13) Retrieved 2012-01-29.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090512101759/http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/no_god_and_no_god_gene_either/

Occam

I am just saying that the best explanation for the observation that lots of people have similar religious experiences is similarities in brain structure close enough to give them similar experiences. This is the only interpretation of the evidence that is not a God of the gaps argument.

Religious experience is cultural and is  not related to a gene so they can't ascribe it to universal human brain structure. He also totally drops the argument that not everyone has RE thus it can't be result universality of the human brain.

Overall two massive reasons he loses: I made two arguments and backed both up with empirical data, he has no empirical data is totally mistaken about mine.

My Debate with Occam On CARM

Occam is an atheist posting on CARM not hte original William of Occam. We recently had a 1x1 debate over the issue: resolved that belief in God is rationally warraned. I made my favorite God argument, my own argument from epistemic judgement (aka the Thomas Reid argument). I'll just hit the highlights. The fill debate can be found here.

I want to point out I am not putting this up to show that I won or how I'm so much smarter. Occam is not someone I would make fun of, he's a sharp thinker and one of the atheists I respect the most over there.


My argument was:


(1) No empirical evidence can prove the existence of the external world, other minds, or the reality of history, or other such basic things.

(2) We do not find this epistemological dilemma debilitating on a daily basis because we assume that if our experiences are consistent and regular than we can navigate in "reality" whether it is ultimately illusory of not.

(3) Consistency and regularity of personal experience is the key.

(4) religious experience can also be regular and consistent, perhaps not to the same degree, but in the same way.

(5) Inter-subjective

RE of this type has a commonality shared by believers all over the world, in different times and different places, just as the external world seems to be perceived the same by everyone.

(6) Real and Lasting effects.


(7) therefore, we have as much justification for assuming religious belief based upon experience as for assuming the reality of the external world or the existence of other minds.


So we habitually compare our experiences to a criteria that we set for reality. If they stack up we assume they are real and valid. Religious experience fits that set of criteria and thus we can trust it. That makes it a good reason to assume that God exists. Because he is given in a certain set of experiences which affect us in ways we would expected to be affected by the divine.

The real argument is the long term positive effects of the experiences. These are the experiences known as "mystical" and that conform to those set by W.T. Stace for his theory. Moreover,the acuity of these judgements about the experiences can be known in a more accurate way now due to the work of Ralph Hood on the M scale and other researchers working in the Vain of people like James and Stace.


I also brought up a second argument in the next speech that was the univeral arguement, based upon the one above. The argument says that all the mystical experinces around the world are the same once we take out specific names and doctrines, that implies that there is objective reality behing experinced.


We each made three speeches. This is excerpts form the last speech I made.


part 1 of speech 3



Occam

... Metacrock says that the experience of God is analogous to our experience of the external world. The problem with this claim is that it's plainly false. People do not have reasonable disagreements about whether or not the external world exists, and there are no major social movements based on the belief that there is no external world. You don't have to be crazy to disbelieve in God like you have to be crazy to disbelieve in the external world. So, the claim that the two are analogous is wildly implausible. 

Metacrock:
Here he's just equivocating between a difference sense of what was meant. I said the criteria by which we decide the reality of our experiences is met by religious experience. thus it is believable and trust worthy. It's false to say that there are not questions about experience and reality. we have them allt he time. ON a trivial level we say stuff like "Is it hot in here." we we may not think about it when we say that are asking "is this subjective or objective,. is it part of reality or just my illusion that I'm hot?"

then of cousre there are instances where people have strange experiences that they don't understand. True documented story, two women driving on a highway at night. They see what they think is an old man who might be seeking help, a long haired hippe types, they pull over to him and almost stop and looking closer and see it's an animal when it stands up to it's full stature is huge and is covered in hair all over its body but a human like face. so one screams and they drive off real fast. One says "did you see that?" they don't know what they say but the are conferring. why are they conferring why don't they just say "we didn't see that because science types say it doesn't exist so we must not have?" Because they thought they did see it. that's why they have to check it. they check by accessing the shared nature, the regularity and the consistency of it.

when the skeptic says "It was just a bear that they misidentified" then he's really saying "they didn't get the criteria right. it was really regular thing that people see but they mis identified it." He's using the criteria too.

There's a lot of lea way between those two examples, feeling hot in a room and seeing a Bigfoot, there's a lot of middle ground there where we check our perceptions all the time. So that criteria is used it is important. The battle field, crimes scenes, strange situations, when being robbed, all kinds of times when we need to check reality.

Occam wants us to think that epistemological issues are unimportant becuase there are no social movements that question reality; all social movements question reality. The issue here is epistemology is important for a thinker even if there's no social movement to redefine the nature of the real. If we are asking questions about the reality of God are asking about the roots of reality. we asking about the basis of the nature of things. God is not just another fragment in reality God is th basis of all reality. To consider the existence of God is to consider the basis of metaphysics and epistemology.



Occam:

Next, Metacrock objects that I am undermining theism as a properly basic belief by pulling on other beliefs. There is actually nothing illegitimate about this procedure, and I'm not sure why Metacrock would think otherwise. If someone holds a belief in the basic way, it is legitimate to undermine it by showing that it is inconsistent with other beliefs he holds, rendering it no longer properly basic for him.

 

Metacrock:

No first of all I didn't even argue that. he has misunderstood my basic thrust. I said I don't accept PB as a paradigm I argue for Prima facie so if I make a prima facie case I've met by goal. He says nothing about that. I have made a prima facie case. it's his burden of proof now to show that my PF case isn't enough.

more importantly, he's obfuscated between the original issue which was that he expects a theist to argue or PB nature of God beilef, now he's turning it around and saying it's legitimate to undermine God belief by showing that it's inconsistent with other beliefs he holds. That was not his arguemnt. he is shifting argumetns. Shift because the original argument merely used the other beliefs as a means of defining properly basic. PB means it's not dependent other beliefs. Now suddenly he puts it in terms of contradicting other beliefs. he has not said that before. So that's a shift it's not kosher in debate.




Occam:

Metacrock objects that we cannot get outside of our experience to check it in any case. But I am not objecting to religious experience on the grounds that we cannot get outside religious experience to check it, I am objecting to religious experience on the grounds that it is inconsistent with our scientific knowledge and, indeed, with the very spirit of science. Religious experience can be shown to be unreliable on independent grounds, so I'm not just perversely asserting that it might be wrong with no evidence.

Metacrock:




(1) he never shows that religious belief is any kind of contradiction to scientific knowledge. for that to be the case scientific knowledge would have to disprove god we all know there is no such disproof. The only kind of alleged "disproof" any atheist has is absence of proof not an actual disproof.

(2) he totally misconstrued my argument. I said we can't get outside of our perceptions to check them becasue he said:

Occam (last time)

The second problem with this position is that in the age of science, we have learned not to trust in basic beliefs that were not arrived at by a reliable methodology. The methodology that the theist relies upon to form a basic belief in a god will invariably be religious experience or the testimony of Scripture, both of which have been discredited as sources of information.

Metacrock
I am saying you can't establish this methodology since the issue more primitive and more epistemological than scinece can handle. you have to do scinece through your perceptions. science can't enable you to get outside your own perceptions.

that's why I call th argument "epistemic judgement." we have to make a judgement at the level of epistemology we can't assert a scientific answer. We have to make a judgment and we use that criteria (regular, consistent, shared) to make the judgment call. that's at a more basic level than science.

(3) when scinece comes into it we have a scientific methodology that's better validated than any other in the field the M scale. that enables us to understand when we are dealing a real mystical experience. that enables us to compare experiences.

In terms of science we meet his criteria. but the issues are more in depth than science. They are philosophical at the core.




part 2 of speech 3



Occam

Metacrock appeals to Hood's surveys to show that religious experiences are veridical. I think it's just obvious that a survey cannot prove that God exists. Sorry my argument does not turn on Hood proving God. 

Metacrock
Please try to follow along. If you are actually wiling to read the whole debate then you might as well get the issues correct. The turning point of the argument its the criteria. tha'ts what makes it valid and that's wakes it "proof" to the extent that it proves a warrant. It warrants beilef because the fitting of the criteria makes it a good reason to believe that God is real. it fits the criteria we use to prove reality.


what did I say he study does? look up there and see. It enables us to know the unified nature of the experiences and that they fit the criteria. you can't say this type of experience fits a criteria if you don't know what type that is. so the studies show that. the M scale is a way to say "this si that type of thing."

once we can say "this is that type of thing" then we can say "it fits the criteria." Because he does not answer that he's not answering the argument. he's made up his own straw man argument that he got form listing to the people who dont' read all the posts. you are listening to the people who don't read the posts they quite after the first line so you are not getting the question issue.

Occam

Even if all of the people taking the survey are telling the truth, which is not guaranteed, people could have experiences of God with profound transformative effects without God actually existing. The inference is a simple non sequitur. 

 

 

Metacrock

that is a statement not in evidence. he has no way of knowing if that is true. He can't prove it, but there's a good reason to think its' not true. He there is no evidence of any kind that shows an untruth that is unexpected leading to long term transfomative effects. why don't delusions do it? they don't. mental illness id debilitating over time.

The only thing that comes close to answer is placebo. there is no evidence that placebo is long term, and it has to be expected. In half the cases mystical experience is not expected.

(a) it's a conversion experience a large portion of the time.

(b) contradicts cherished doctrines

(c) it's in childhood half the time when there no doctrinal attachment.

it's can't be a placebo. therefore it can't be that unreality leads to long term transformation.


I leave it to the reader as to who won.

Atheist Double Standard on Evidence: Knee Jerk Reaction, or just Jerk Reaction?

 


 Caveat: do not assume this means I think we should
trash the Koran or any book sacred to a people. I'm
saying the Atheist want to trash the Bible but not
other sacred books. That's a double standard.

On CARM 11/10/13



This is about a bright idea I had to point out the discrepancy between the way atheists responded to the M scale studies of mystical experience vs a study an atheist put forward that uses a similar methodology. The M scale is a method for determining the validity of a particular experience as to it's mystical nature. It does this by comparing it to a standard validated theory by W.T. Stace. Mysticism scale is a series of 32 questions designed to determine if one's experiences are like those described by Stace. One can read more about it here.

I do not argue that the M scale proves the existence of God. I never have said that. I have said that it's findings can be extrapolated to make an argument about the warrant for belief.

read this becuase I will show that Royce's studies (at least one) has the very same flaw for which atheists condemn the M scale.

Many times atheists on this board refer to the M scale (mysticism scale method for understanding if one has had a valid mystical experience in relation to W.T. Stace's theory). They have slandered it and called it names and said it's stupid it's horible pice junck ect ect.

One of the major basis for this reaction is the fact that the M scale is a scale (duh) (not knowing what that means in sociology) they didn't realize a scale is a range of answers given to survey. So they find it's a survey they go ape. "they could be lying." So they assume all the responded to Hood's studies lie about their experiences of God's presence and stuff. that accounts for all the right answers and stuff that just happens to validate Stace's theory. this mass of people in six different countries just happen to lie at the time in the same way and it validates this theory they have never read.

Now in present time


Royce throws a study at me.

Saslow, brothers keeper,

says atheists have more compassion than religious people.



It uses a rating scale and questions. just as does the M scale. It asks them questions about their feelings and attitudes they could clearly be lying.

Participants and procedure.
We analyzed participants from the
2004 General Social Survey, which is a nationally representa-tive sample of noninstitutionalized adults in the United Statesover the age of 18 (Davis & Smith, 2005; 624 men, 713...

mark that "survey" because atheists have surveys are worthless. yes in relation to the M scale they said more than one said it, big thinker said it, I think Diest said it (sorry if I'm wrong about that) that survey's are always unreliable and can be lied on.

Methodology for study 1

"Compassion.
As compassion, sympathy, and empathic
concern are typically considered highly interrelated (Batson,
2009), we measured the tendency to feel compassion with the
7-item empathic concern subscale of the Interpersonal
Reactivity Index (rated from 1,
does not describe very well,to 5,describes very well;a¼.72;M¼4.43,SD¼.67; Davis,
1983). Items include,I often have tender, concerned feelings
for people less fortunate than me,When I see someone being
taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them, and
Other people’s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great
deal..."

same deal. they asking them their experiences and feelings they could be lying!


I want to see you guys say Royces study is garbage. I want to you see mock and ridicule that one the same as you do the m scale. the methodologies are much alike.

hey they have a motive to lie because it makes atheism look bad if they don't have compassion.

 So in other words it's a study that uses a similar methodology to the M scale. It uses the very methods that the M scale has been berated by those atheists for: a survey is bad because they could lie. So when they survey finds for atheism (they are compassionate more so than religious peopel) that's ok. When it's finding agaisnt them (religious experience is transformation and could be used as a reason for belief in God) they hate the very same methods.


 If atheists are so brilliant, scientific, rational, they use reason to evaluate and analyze data and arrive at reasoned conclusions bravely and honestly  through their intellects, what do you think they are going to do with this?


Whateverman:

First, we'd have to see Royce claiming that his study proves God does or does not exist.

If you think that doesn't mean they will automaticaly reject any evidence for God withouit cocenr for it's truth content guess again.


Originally Posted by Metacrock

what does that have to do with it? (what does what it says about God have to do with the methodology being good or not)

 whateverman

Try reading what I've actually written.

Meta:

hu?


Originally Posted by Metacrock

what you wrote is nonsense, it proves my point about the double standard. I reflected totally accurately.

Whateverman

This is why people ignore you here, Metacrock.

You've not considered anything people have written in this thread, and you've rarely done so elsewhere. If you're so unwilling to listen to what people are saying, raging against atheists for them not listening to you is childish (at best).

Meta:

what's he talking about? He just said didn't he? that it depends upon weather or not it's about God. I'm just taking him at his word.


Maybrick

Its weird.

I cannot see where in the quote provided they appealed to magic, gods and indefinables.

It is almost like the study is studying actual effects.

I would also go out on a limb and suggest the study authors haven't left out whole subgroups that might have messed up their figures.

That is just a guess, but usually Royce seems a lot more thorough than yourself in picking sources.

If you cannot see the differences in concept between "compassion, sympathy, and empathic concern" which are quantifiable things and "ooooh...I felt the touch of god, and just look at the trees!" then the problems are on your end.

Meta:

That still means that they are rejecting not becuase of the method but becuase they don't like the findings. It's hte conclusion they reject but since they have no basis for contradicting the method, they accept it when it's in their favor, then they have no basis for questioning the findings. These are teh big intellecutally suprorr atheists that base their ideas on reason? hu?

Tralala (Trollala)

You used the M scale studies as evidence that god must exist, which is a ridiculous position.

Royce was not saying god does not exist because of the studies he produced..


Metacrock, could you PLEASE be more honest with your arguments.

Meta

this guy is really a brain dead reactionary. everything he says in that quote there si wrong and is demonstrably wrong.


(1) I do not argue God "must exist." I say that the experiences offer a warrant for belief, that is they offer a good reason to believe. I specifically deny proof of God's existence on the basis that he's not subject to empirical proof becuase he's not given in sense data.

(2) I said nothing about Royce's view on God I said the methodology of the study he threw at me was quite similar to the M scale. so much so that it casts a poll on their rejection of the M scale. This is just proves they don't read the posts.

(3) Be more honest. I show a study that they used agaisnt me that has a similar methodology to the M scale they turn around and show their slander of the M scale is base upon not accepting it's data, which is scientific data produced by the methodology they otherwise except. That proves it's not the truth they care about but want they want to be the truth.


whateverman decides to come back and try it again. I guess he feels shamed by my insistance that he think fairly.

Whateverman

You really can't read for comprehension, can you...

I did not say or imply what you did. I implied that a study involving the subjective opinions of people (who may have lied or not) might be useful, but it's not evidence for the existence of God. Royce linked to a study, but people didn't jump all over him because he didn't claim the study's results said anything about the existence or non-existence of gods.

Seriously, grow up.

O wow a "grow up" even! That's such an adult post he didn't claim teh studies result in the existence of Gdo so that's why it's a good study. the one I use that uses the same methodology has findings that one could use to make God arguments so it's bad. The findings have to be pre detemriend to weed out conclusions we don't like that's what he calls "growing up."

Is it scientific to pre determine what your findings can be?

Atheists can't face Scientific Facts:Exchange with Royce part 2

Part 2



Royce:

I've taken courses in formal logic and critical thinking; that's how I know what the "fallacy of appeal to consequence" is. You're committing it. 

Meta:

you are only a sophomore you can't have taken that many, you didn't pay attention apparently. Even people who are smart and study lots of logic can still argue fallaciously.

just becasue you find two aspects that are similar between an argument and a fallacy doesn't mean it's the fallacy at work. that's based upon the fallacy of argument from analogy.

Royce

Employing an argument from an analogy is not fallacious.


Meta:

yes it is. especially trying to prove B is q because A is q. that is a total fallacy.


Royce

It's only fallacious if the analogy is faulty, or if the similarity cited is not likely to provide evidence for the similarity inferred. Please learn your formal and informal fallacies. Here's a Wikipedia page to help you.

Meta:
you please learn to go beyond Cliff notes.that is not true in the first place, even the best analogy proves nothing. A being exactly like B does not prove that B will turn out like A. Especially if there is no causal link bewteen A and B.

If I show that the situation with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is exactly like the situation in Dallas in 1963 that does not prove that JFK was killed by conspiracy. or do you think it does? why didn't they just say that in front the senate hearings that chruch ran why wouldn't that be proof enough?

this is on Point (3) Disproved by positive effects

There are no comparable effects from irrational beliefs. Most irrational beliefs are the result of mental illness, mental illness is degenerative and not transfomative. NO irrational belief is tranformative. Just finding a similarity is not proof that it's the same.


you can't explain how it could be that a misfire of chemical process consistently results in dramatic life long postiive change.

Royce:

Whether a belief is epistemically rational, true, etc. has nothing todo with the positive benefits of the belief. To say otherwise is to commit the fallacy of appeal to consequences. Here's the Wikipedia definition of the fallacy:

Meta:
nononono! you are totally misapplying that. It does most certainly have to do with positive effects iff the positive effect always follow a certain thing and not another. If the positive effects rule out a negative cause then positive effects are important in arguing cause.

If a patient should have died from a certain condition, no treatment was given, he not only didn't die but improved his health, then obvious he didn't have that condition.

Royce:

"Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin for "argument to the consequences"), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. This is based on an appeal to emotion and is a type of informal fallacy, since the desirability of a consequence does not make it true." Please stop committing it. 

Meta:

you are misusing that. I'm not "appealing to them" I'm using them as an indicative marker. that is not the fallacy. like the analgoy above (btw that's the proper use of analogy in argument, I'm not trying to prove by use of it but illustrate the concept).


Royce:

Furthermore, you're wrong to say that, "most irrational beliefs are the result of mental illness." Please do not make up claims about topics you do not know much about. For example, Kahneman and Tversky's work on bounded rationality shows that many, if not most, people exhibit irrational reasoning in fairly everyday situations. 

Meta:

no that's not true. I specified that I was talking pathology not logical inference. you dont' know anything. you don't understand you are babbling. you find this you think it really proves your nonsense and all it really does it make for show and tell. O look at me I can articles I'm a genius. o yes!no you are not.


Royce:

And these people are not suffering from mental illness. Furthermore, there are plenty of everyday situations in which people have false or irrational beliefs that have positive consequences for them.

you haven't proved they have pathological states. so we are just talking at cross purposes. you are distorting the original argument becuase you have your little show off thing there.

For example: a husband may be driven to care for their wife due to them havign the (false) belief that their wife loves them. Someone can devote their life to charity and giving to others due to the (false) belief that an Hades and/or Thanatos will reward them in the afterlife by allowing them to see their departed love ones. Not to mention the empirical evidence that depressed people tend to have a more accurate image of themselves then less depressed people (here's the Wiki page for it; i can give you paper on it if need be). So that's a clear case in which an inaccurate belief has positive benefits: helping one avoid depression. 

Meta:

multiplying examples doesn't cut it.

[He's still just talking at cross purposes because I was talking about psychological pathology and not merely illogical inference. Religious experience is not the result merely having illogical ideas. Illogical ideas done produce the kind of emotional reaction termed "mystical experience." So we are obviously talking about something more psychological. Logically the argument he should be making should be about potential causes of mystical experience, because that's the issue, the atheist argument that they the result of naturalistic causes. He hasn't done anything to prove that just having illogical ideas causes the kind of informative effects we see with mystical experiences.]

that's argument from analogy. Poor analogy. saying this is no like my argument.

 Royce:
Arguments from analogy are not fallacious, unless the analogy is faulty, You have not shown the analogy is faulty. Furthermore, you are engaged in God-of-the-gaps reasoning, and God can be cut out of the explanation by Occam's razor


Meta:

(1) you can't evoke Occam's razor to get of God. Occam himself said you can't do it.

(2) you can't argue farm analogy and prove that some result B will result becuase the situation is so like the result in A. If we could then we could just stop having senate hearings and just appoint analogy committees.

Major point in the 7 major arguments
(4) God part of the brain is a pro God argument, it's evoked by the assumption that religious experience is the result of an adaptation.

God part of the brain cannot be expalined though mere evolutionary means because it requires innate ideas. Evolution can't give innate ideas, in fact innate ideas come to be considered impossible in the enlightenment.

Royce:

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Evolution cannot give innate ideas?! You're joking, right?! Have you read ANYTHING in evolutionary psychology?! Please stop this habit of making up claims about topics you know next-to-nothing about.


Meta:

(1) evolutionary psychology is BS. Sociobiology was bull ****.


(2) there is no proof of innate ideas. none. you are using instinct and calling it "Idea" you are reductionism leads you to think ideas are just instincts.

Web definitions
Innatism is a philosophical doctrine that holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge, and that therefore the mind is not a...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_ideas

Britannica

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...70/innate-idea

"innate idea, in philosophy, an idea allegedly inborn in the human mind, as contrasted with those received or compiled from experience. The doctrine that at least certain ideas (e.g., those of God, infinity, substance) must be innate, because no satisfactory empirical origin of them could be conceived, flourished in the 17th century and found in René Descartes its most prominent exponent. The theory took many forms: some held that a newborn child has an explicit awareness of such ideas; others, more commonly, maintained that innate ideas have some implicit form, either as a tendency or as a dormant capacity for their formulation, which in either case would require favourable experiential conditions for their development."

Here's your assigned reading:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/...w/fulltext.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/...1/fulltext.pdf

sorry the sophomore doe snot assign the Ph.D. you are the studnet I am the teacher. time stop pretending.

your arguments suck. you argue twisted logic and you make up your own facts. children at play do not make good philosophers.

your assignment is to listen to people who have ideas different from (ahahaahah) "yours," try to understand what they are really saying instead of twisting their words.


 part 3


that is totally! it's idiotic to argue that it's not valid [It there being the M scale.]when it is being used as the standard approach. I've quotes several experts who say Hood revolutionized the field that he's great and that his scale is great. you have no coutner answer.

[ already cited:
Katherine A. MacLean, Roland R. Griffithis, et al

"Factor Analysis of the mystical experience Questionnaire: A study of experiences occasioned by the Hallucinogen Psilocybin," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion PDF 
http://www.heffter.org/docs/2013pdf/Mystical%20experience%20questionnaire.pdf

"Beginning with Hood (1975), the modern empirical study of mysticism has focused on char-

acterizing mystical experiences that individuals have had across their lifetime. Hood’s Mysticism

Scale ...developed according to Stace’s (1960) framework, is the most widely used quantitative mea-sure of mystical experience. The Mysticism Scale has generally been shown to be a reliable

and cross-culturally valid measure of lifetime experiences."

Michael E. Neilsen
Georgia Southern University
Feb, 2000
Psychology of Religion in USA

Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief.

"Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief. Although Freud reduced religious belief to a natural, if ultimately flawed, attempt to cope with life's stresses, contemporary psychoanalytic interpretations are not necessarily hostile to religious faith. Analytical schools find their inspiration in Jung's description of spiritual life. Most psychologists, however, consider such descriptions to be undemonstrated by scientific research, and therefore it plays a limited role in psychology. Object relations schools also draw from psychoanalysis, but focus their efforts on maternal influences on the child. Each of these three schools rely on clinical case studies and other descriptive methods based on small samples, which runs counter to the prevailing practice of psychology in America." \\

Dale Caird
originally in journal for the Scientific study of religion 1988, 27 (1) 122-126

"Research into mystical experience has been greatly facilitated over the last decade by Hood (1975). Utilizing the conceptual framework of Stace (1960) he devised a 32 item questionnaire tapping eight categories of mysticism. This questionnaire the M scale was shown by Hood to have respectable internal consistency and reasonable construct validity.]


Royce:

I do have a counter: multiple researchers pointing out the flaws and limitations of Hood's M scale. Here they are again. 

Meta:

No you don't have it. you have made up that they say that because the don't. Look would Hood Put them (Spanos and Moretti) in his chapter saying "these guys back me up" if they didn't? how could he get away with that? hU? use your brain. you never did quote their conclusion! you qutoe minor stuff form in the middle of the study you don't show their conclusion.

Hood uses them as back up how could he do that if they said he was no good. Little matter of losing credibility!He hasn't. I've quoted experts saying he's ground breaking, he's the standard, he's taken seriously. you manipulated what they say so it looks like they are against him but they are not. Page 364 of his text book:

"They directly correlated the M scale with the Tellegen and Atikinson absorption scale and with three measures of hypnosis. Overall the M scale correlated positively with all of these measures."



(1) you have misquoted Spanos. He does not say the S scale is bad. you are reading that in by using minor statements that are not part of the conclusion. their conclusion is that the M scale corrolate with two other scales and shows that it's validated and that people who have theses experinces are as stable as the average person.

Royce:

You can't show a single-place I misquoted them. 

Meta:

"leaves out a whole level.." they did not say level, they did not have a conclusion that M scale is no good. they never say that!

[numerous times previous exchanges--prior thread--when I confronted him with that he would say "they do say that."]

Royce:

They claimed that there was a whole subset of mystical experiences that Hood and Stace ignored (nonpositive and negatively affective mystical experiences), 

Meta:

NOW YOU ARE CALLING IT A "SUBSET" THAT PROVES IT'S YOUR WORDS! i YOU HAVE BEEN SAYING "LEVEL" BECAUSE i CORRECTED YOU ON IT ABOUT 10 TIMES. NOW YOU CHANGE THE PHRASE. THAT JUST PROVES YOU MAKING UP PHRASES AND CLAIMING ITS IN THE STUDY.

Royce:

that this oversight may have biased the work of Hood and Stace, and that when they examined this subset of mystical experience it was correleated with psychological disturbance. I've given you the quotes to back up this claim on this thead. Here they are again: 

Meta:

NO i MADE THAT POINT FIRST BEFORE YOU DI AS ANSWER TO YOUR NONSENSE. YOU HAVE COMPLETELY MISREPRESENTED. YOU ARE SO DISHONEST THIS PROVE YOU ARE TOTALLY DISHONEST

they didn't leave anything out. you have been habitually speaking like there's some written in stone protocol that there has to be a negative side and there is no data to confirm that. Jame's references are anecdotal. there is no data. Stace didn't include it because it wasn't in the mystics he read. Hood didn't include it because he was studying Stace.


Royce:

""A number of investigators have classified mystics with traditional psychiatric diagnoses (e.g., as hysterics, Leuba, 1929), or have labeled mystical experiences with such pejorative expressions as "infantile" or "regressed" (e.g., Maven, 1970; Prince & Savage, 1972). An alternative tradition has viewed mystical experiences as positive, optimistic, and ego-enhancing rather than as negative or psychopathological. Along these lines Hood (1974, 1977; Hood, Hall, Watson & Biderman, 1979) found no relationship between his questionnaire measure of mystical experience and measures of psychopathology, and positive correlations between mystical experience and measures of self-actualization and psychological strength. 

Meta:

those negatives are NOT from studies. they didn't any scientific studies in 1929! they are anecdotes.

Royce:

James (1902), however, acknowledged that mystical experiences were not always positive and were sometimes negative, evil and frightening. Such "diabolical mysticism" he believed was restricted to those "of enfeebled or deluded states of mind" (417). Relatedly, a number of investigators (Glock & Stark, 1965; Margolis & Elifson, 1979) have indicated that individuals who report intense religious experiences sometimes describe negative experiences, out-of-body experiences, visions, voices, disorientation and other "nonpositive" events that do not fit within the uniformly positive descriptions of mystical experience offered by Stace (1960) and others. For instance, the empirically derived taxonomy of mystical experience developed by Glock and Stark (1965) included such negative and "diabolical" experiences as the sense of being acted upon by an evil presence, being given messages by or being overtaken or possessed by Satan, and so on. The mystical experience questionnaire developed by Hood (1975) was based on the positive description of mystical experience offered by Stace (1960). Hood's (1975) questionnaire does not assess negative or diabolical aspects of mysticism and this may be one of the reasons that it fails to correlate significantly with measures of psychopathology [emphasis added].


Meta:

none of those are data. James's exampel was based upon one guy (read teh Verities. I've read it I know the example--not a study). they do't give a reason why it shouls do that.
[To be more precise the early dates such as the James and Luba were not really studies as we would do studies today. the latter dates (after the 60s) are studies but they are not damaing to mystical experience. Out body experience is not part of mystical. The conclusion that Spanos and Moretti reach says that mystical are as stable as non mystics. Sot they are talking about experiences mystics have in addition to mystical experience.]

I argued the first several threads on Spanso that you never proved this point..you have no yet. I asked over and over again for the data you still don't have it. if you had data you would use it. you don't have any kind of quote such that "x% of mysticls have negative." you have not quoted that. you don't have it becuase it doesn't exist.

(2) not much

(3) It's short term. I've arleady documented that. that's from the spiritual board that summarized Nobel and Wuthnow. they say the negatives are anxiety and it's shortterm.

you have no evidence on it at all.

Royce:

For the present study we developed two instruments to assess "nonpositive" and diabolical religious experiences. Our Diabolical Experience Scale was based on the Glock and Stark typology (1965) and assessed the extent to which people reported contact with demonic beings (e.g., "I have sometimes felt as if I were in the presence of the Devil"), experienced demonic revelations (e.g., "I believe that certain things have been revealed to me by an evil spiritual being"), and felt overwhelmed by evil forces (e.g., "I have had an experience in which an evil presence seemed to absorb and take hold of me"). 

Meta:

Spanos and the conclusion is the M scale passes! read their conclusion stop cherry picking stuff form side bars.

Royce:

Margolis and Elifson (1979) found that individuals who reported mystical experiences sometimes reported out-of-body experiences (OBE's) and visions and voices. The visions and voices were sometimes defined as demonic and sometimes as divine or holy. Consequently, we developed an Anomalous Experiences Questionnaire to assess such experiences. [...]

I disproved that. you did not answer. you are dredging up stuff I disproved.


Meta:
(1) that's not part of mystical expedience. that's why the quote say 'they also have...' doesn't say it's part of it

(2) I quote several definitions that rule it out including Stace. so that's a good reason why the M scale doesn't use it or need.

[quoting Spanos and Moretti--from the conclusion!]

"Like Hood (1975, 1979) we found that positive mysticism was unrelated to measures of psychopathology. On the other hand, diabolical experiences were related both to positive mysticism and to those measures of psychological disturbance that emphasize the reporting of somatic symptoms (i.e., neuroticism and psychosomatic symptoms)."

(1) I already said this 1979 was before the triple solution so the M scale was less developed at that time. any findings not valid now becuase it's better and it's different. their conclusion that it works is ok because if it worked then it works better now.

(2) any criticism of the M scale from that far back is invalid becuase it ignores the way the scale is done now.

that means big tricked you used to make the bogus argument that they condoning th M scale is necessarily wrong because if they were they would not find it corroborating with two other scales.


Royce:

Wrong again. The two scales were specifically designed to examine the nonpositive mystical experiences ignored by the M scale. 

Meta:

that doesn't even address what I said. I said if the negatives were significant they could not correlate it with the two absorption scales (the quote from Hood's book above). So you have not answered that.

if they thought to not measuring the negatives were significant enough they could not conclude the people were stable.

Royce:

Nonsense. The clearly said that negatively affective mystical experience (specifically: diabolical experiences) were correlated with measures of psychological disturbance.

Meta:

THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER. IT HAS NOTING TO DO WITH the issues. SCREW YOUR HEAD ON AND TRY TO LISTEN TO THE WORDS: SPANOS AND MORETTI FOUND THAT MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE PEOPLE WERE AS STABLE AS ANYONE,THAT'S PART OF THEIR FINDING. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU CHERRY PICK OTHER STATEMENTS THAT'S WHAT THEY FOUND A CONCLUSION! THEY COULD NOT CONCLUDE THAT IF HTE NEGATIVES WERE SIGNIFICANT. THEN THEY WOULDN'T BE STABLE. DO YOU EVER UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF NEGATIVES?

Royce

http://books.google.com/books?id=ETV...etti%3F&f=true
I read the relevant pages. Where does your your rebut a single claim I've made about Spanos and Moretti's 1988 paper?


Meta:

YOU HAVE NOT READ THE CONCLUSION (what you call "revlivant is your cherry pikcing) until you read the conclusion you have no argument. [he never quoted from the actual conclusion of the study I did--see above]

Royce:
I've asked you to read it several times why are you afraid to?

Meta:
I've asked for the number or percentage of negatives. why wont you give that? you must be afraid to you always give something else rather than that.

 part 4

in all of that hubbub he doesn't' answer these points:

(5) none of the researchers who claim to evoke mystical experience by stimulating the brain use the M scale or another valid scacle to know if they succeeded so you can't use them as evidence.

(6) that means your argument is merely ideologically driven and theoretical

(7) you can't show that an accident or an adaptation would be consistently positive i so many ways.

rather than answering them when he finished screwing up 4 he goes back to the Spanos and Moretti which was earlier set of threads. why? because he thinks he can millage off that since it's twisting a study to make it look it doesn't support Hood when it does. he also clearly has no answers for these points.

Atheists Can't Face Scientific Facts: Debate with Royce

Exchange with Royce over 7 arguments: Naturalism as cause on RE

 This is an exchange on a message board over issues relating to my use of 200 studies on religious experience and the arguments I think they support for the existence of God and the validity of religious beilef. I've addressed several times, on this blog, the nature of these studies and grossly unfair treatment atheists have given them. One such post was, "Atheists Slander Real Scholar," "M Scale Proved by My own test." "Atheist show their Lack of honor and decency." Please read those articles to understand what this is all about.

There have already been several exchanges at this point. I isolated the exchange on its own thread and asked others not to take part so it would be 1x1 bewteen Royce and I, and he bailed.



Blue Text: my past words in previous exchange, not all of my answers are in blue because the last exchange before Royce chickened out and ran away form the debate is not in blue. The blue is what I had said the previous time.

Here are the original 6 points that are the major issues:

these are the arguments I made to disprove Royce's assertion that brain chemistry was the cause of RE.

(1) you have never answered the receptor argument

(2) It's disproved by the universalism

(3) It's disproved by the positive effects

(4) the God part of the brain is more of an argument for God than against, so bringing into any sort of evolutionary encroachment raises the possibly of God at work.



(5) none of the researchers who claim to evoke mystical experience by stimulating the brain use the M scale or another valid scacle to know if they succeeded so you can't use them as evidence.

(6) that means your argument is merely ideologically driven and theoretical

(7) you can't show that an accident or an adaptation would be consistently positive i so many ways.


the current state of my answers to Royces come back.


Part 1

I am cutting out a bunch of this stupid yammering and getting to some real arguments.

there was a lot of stupid stuff in there like "you are not good you can't think" ect ect we don't need that.


first look for an answer to the receptor argument. that was (1). that's first of the seven points.


here it is as I make it:


Meta:
the naturalistic processes that involve brain chemistry are the basic process through which we think and understand. That means that God has to work in those perimeters if we have any sense of God's presence. It's not surprising to find brain chemistry involved with it. That would like arguing that because God has vibrate the air to speak audibly to Moses then it's naturalistic so God can't be speaking.
That's not much of an argument.

Royce:

First, many theists are substance dualists and thus think that their minds are ontologically distinct from their bodies. Thus, something could interact with their minds without interacting with their bodies, and so God could communicate with them without interacting with their bodies, including their brains. So your argument would not work on theistic substance dualism.

Meta:

that's irrelevant. the point is that none of the neurological arguments can escape the epistemological dilemma and prove anything about the spirit. so they can't rule out mystical experience of as being experience of God's presence just becuase it invovles brain chemistry. making a theory of perception is not at issue is does not answer the argument.

Royce:

Second, we can cut God out of the explanation via Occam's razor. Brain chemistry (along with other naturalistic factors such as upbringing) would suffice for explaining the religious experiences.

Meta:

No we can't becasue all the other things I've argued tell us there are things involved and you can't make these simplistic formulations, which is after all merely argument from sign, or correlation.

that doesn't answer the epistemological dilemma of the receptor argument.

Royce

One would not need to posit a God, or interaction with an existent God, as a cause for these experiences (it does not make the explanation on the metrics of inference to the best explanation), especially given the disparate nature of religious experiences. Looking at people's reports of these experiences, one would not thing it likely that they are experiencing the same, singular deity.

 Meta:

that's a very stupid argument and proves you have not read a single study on the subject. all the studies point to the universality of the experiences themselves. many of the studies, but Hood especially prove this. The article in the McNamara book is one major Hood source on that point.

(the experiences are all the same, what differs is the name of God i the particular tradition).

the universal nature of it is one major arguments that proves there's much more to it than just neurological data. you can't just cross it out becuase it invovles brain chemistry.

not the answer doesn't answer it. not saying that every single person has it (although it's been proposed theoretically by William James and Wuthnow) but it is universal to all cultures, times and faiths. It shouldn't be becuase religious construct are cultural. cultural constructs can't be universal to all cultures. that's a good reason to think something more is involved.

that's the universality argument I just got through referring to.

Royce:

So that's what you mean by "universalism". Well then, that's fairly trite. After all, if even one member of a culture had that experience, you'd say that the experience was present in that culture. I could say the same about hallucinations. After all, it's fairly likely that every culture that existed had at least one member who had an auditory and/or visual hallucination. So using your definition, that means auditory and/or visual hallucinations are universal and universalism applies to them. Ha!

Meta:

what a childish argument! you are certainly a sophomore that is well,you know, sophomoric! First of all the arguemnt is made by the leader researcher in the wrold in the field whose instrument is the standard procedure for study of religious experience. Its not some little deal i made up. Backup! that's the way he argues.

secondly, Steve, you have no basis for the idiotic assertion that it's only one person in a culture. it's not only proved by modern studies which of course use more than one person in a culture but also based Stace who read all the great mystics of the world that one could find in the 1950s. IT"S YOUR BURDEN OF PROOF because I have the data to prove it., from the M scale validations and other studies. so you have must do the proving that it's not true.

Royce

Also, culturally-influenced traits can be universal. For example: language-use. Do all cultures speak the same language? No. But as Chomsky pointed out, there are underlying commonalities to the grammar and languages employed across all cultures. Doesn't change the fact that language and language-use is a culturally-influence trait

.

Meta:

you don't get the idea of a construct. I'm not surprised you don't get what that is. language itself is nto a construct it's an instinct. Generative grammar is an instinct. It's not cultural. the particular language are cultural they are not passed on and they learned and they limited to culture.

it's just the way anthropologists divide up the world. anything universal is not a cultural construct anything that is limited to a given culture is a cultural construct. religions are different in different cultural just as languages are. so they are not instinct but culture.

If you want to conclude that mystical experience is given instinct with genetics that's ok with me. that is so close to the God o the Brain arguemnt it feeds into arguemnt I made form that. that's the way you want to go that's fine. I'll jump over the fence and start making that argument, great. that's a fine argument because it's an empirical based scientific argument for God.

I will present part 2 in the next couple of days. The kicker is I moved this to a new thread because this was a tangential exchange on a large thread about something else. When I moved it I asked everyone to say off so it would be 1x1, I wanted to move it to isolate it becuase he had several other posts that weren't part of the exchange they were creating confusing, too much to look at, can't focus on the issues. When I moved it and isolated it and ask that it be 1x1 he refused to continue. When he doesn't have anyone to hide behind he wont face me.