RE: Theists, are you immune to being decieved?
November 18, 2013 at 5:14 pm
(This post was last modified: November 18, 2013 at 5:14 pm by The Reality Salesman01.)
(November 18, 2013 at 5:05 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: Strictly speaking, "How do you know you're not delusional?" can only be responded to with an assumption by anyone. If you were delusional, you might not know it. You could be undergoing an extremely potent hallucination, after all.
I disagree. I think that by being willing to revise one's beliefs in the face of new evidence, and being aware of personal biases that may blind one's ability to change are good ways of knowing if a belief is a delusion or not. That is, if a belief doesn't accurately represent reality.
That's the difference between being delusional and misconstruing reality. A religious nut would not change their belief under any circumstances. There is nothing that would cause them to revise it unless the signs that point to self deception are too much to ignore. I think it depends with how long it's been apart of their psyche, and whether or not they are surrounded by those that reinforce the concepts by using the same faulty circular logic.
I am not delusional because I'm not married to any belief that I have. I am willing to revise them, and that is something that no Christian can say.
That's not to say they can't revise them, but in the state in which they defend them, that's not an alternative they're able to consider. It's a belief blinded by confirmation bias that is immune to criticism or revision.