Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: December 1, 2024, 7:29 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
#81
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
(September 1, 2018 at 8:17 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:
(September 1, 2018 at 6:59 am)mh.brewer Wrote: Nope, I'm saying they are both. The same as people who believe in aliens, ghosts or witch craft. They don't necessarily meet the clinical definition either yet are wrong and delusional. 

That doesn't really answer the question.  They can be both and both are the same, or they can be both and yet being delusional entails something more than simply being wrong.  If it's the latter, then what is that something more that makes a person delusional?  If not, why use a term that is perceived as insulting when there is a non-insulting synonym?

It answers the question for me. What synonym do you suggest that I use? You can be wrong without a belief, delusion includes the belief.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental. 
Reply
#82
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
(September 1, 2018 at 1:21 pm)mh.brewer Wrote:
(September 1, 2018 at 8:17 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: That doesn't really answer the question.  They can be both and both are the same, or they can be both and yet being delusional entails something more than simply being wrong.  If it's the latter, then what is that something more that makes a person delusional?  If not, why use a term that is perceived as insulting when there is a non-insulting synonym?

It answers the question for me. What synonym do you suggest that I use? You can be wrong without a belief, delusion includes the belief.

The definition of a belief is an acceptance of something as true or that something exists. How can you be wrong without holding something as true?

Synonyms are: wrong, mistaken, in error, incorrect. But that doesn't answer the question either. You're free to do what you like, I'm questioning whether you have good reason to use the term delusion. Everything you're saying, in addition to your cheek, suggests to me the answer to that question is no.
[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
Reply
#83
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
(September 1, 2018 at 1:32 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:
(September 1, 2018 at 1:21 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: It answers the question for me. What synonym do you suggest that I use? You can be wrong without a belief, delusion includes the belief.

The definition of a belief is an acceptance of something as true or that something exists.  How can you be wrong without holding something as true?

Synonyms are: wrong, mistaken, in error, incorrect.

I was lost and made a wrong turn. I didn't know that so I was mistaken. Not covering my sneeze was incorrect. I made an error in counting. 

None of these need a belief, or at least the same kind of belief as religion/theism. I doubt that you can substitute delusion in the above statements.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental. 
Reply
#84
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
(September 1, 2018 at 1:40 pm)mh.brewer Wrote:
(September 1, 2018 at 1:32 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: The definition of a belief is an acceptance of something as true or that something exists.  How can you be wrong without holding something as true?

Synonyms are: wrong, mistaken, in error, incorrect.

I was lost and made a wrong turn.

First of all, this is not about a person being wrong, but a turn being wrong. A turn is a thing. Things simply can't hold beliefs and the discussion wasn't about things but persons, so this example is irrelevant to the conversation. We're interested in the difference between a person being wrong and a person being deluded. Second, you've equivocated here. The sense of wrong under consideration is that which is the same as mistaken. You wouldn't say he took the mistaken turn, so obviously you're appealing to a different meaning of wrong than that under discussion. So this is not an example of a person being wrong rather than deluded.

(September 1, 2018 at 1:40 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: I didn't know that so I was mistaken.

In order to be mistaken one has to be mistaken about something. If a person doesn't have a belief about something and one is just ignorant, then it is not appropriate to say they were mistaken. The only way not knowing could be relevant here is if they didn't know something relevant to a belief they had. Otherwise they are not mistaken because there is nothing they were mistaken about.

(September 1, 2018 at 1:40 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Not covering my sneeze was incorrect.

Not covering one's sneeze is an action. It's a thing. So the person isn't mistaken for not covering their sneeze unless they had an opinion or belief about the appropriate behavior. The action of not covering one's sneeze being defective in some sense is again irrelevant to the discussion of persons being wrong or mistaken, in the same way as your first example.

(September 1, 2018 at 1:40 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: I made an error in counting. 

How does one count without beliefs about the number of things one has counted? Unless counting is something you can do without having any beliefs, it's not an example of a person being wrong without beliefs. Unless you're talking about, say, a person using a clicker to count off inventory. In that case, again we're dealing with actions rather than persons being defective. So it wouldn't be relevant. (And you're probably equivocating here as well, as making an error is an action and actions are incorrect in the sense of being defective, not in the sense of being mistaken. Actions cannot be mistaken because actions don't think.)

(September 1, 2018 at 1:40 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: None of these need a belief, or at least the same kind of belief as religion/theism.  I doubt that you can substitute delusion in the above statements.

Half of your examples do in fact need a belief, and, in the sense you are using it, deluded most certainly could be substituted for the relevant expression of wrongness. In the other half of your examples, the thing that is wrong is not a person, so it's not a relevant example.

I don't know that you can't give an example of a person being mistaken without holding a belief, but so far you have not done so.

As far as we can tell from the examples you've provided so far, your distinction that delusion involves a belief where being mistaken does not appears to be incorrect.
[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
Reply
#85
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
How far beliefs deviate from reality has to be important, I expect. Also, the reason for being wrong.

If I believe my car keys are on the hook as usual, but actually I put them on the table, I hold an incorrect belief. But this is a simple slip of memory, which will be rectified as soon as the mistake clashes with reality. If I continued to believe it was on the hook even after seeing that it wasn't, then I'd be deluded.

If my keys are on the table because someone else moved them since I put them on the hook, then I have an incorrect belief, but it's just a matter of not having up-to-date knowledge. It would again get corrected.

If I believe my keys are always in my pocket in spirit, and I can use that spirit to lock and unlock the door even without the physical keys, then I'm mistaken and deluded. This would cause a clash with reality as my belief would get challenged any time I didn't have my keys; unless I only ever "used" my spirit key and so didn't ever actually lock or unlock it.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Reply
#86
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
Is belief in the existential equality of all human beings delusional? No natural facts support that belief.
<insert profound quote here>
Reply
#87
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
What is delusional is to rely on the judgment of God constantly there to give measurement and value to all things while at the same time using all that and denying him.

What is extremely delusional is to claim you represent exactly what God would be, and using that to deny his existence with the design of this world.

We are to recognize and not choose his beautiful names, but come to each of them, the guides, the leaders, in submission and in peace and not at war with them to hold on to a delusional ego that will surely perish and not last.
Reply
#88
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
(September 2, 2018 at 12:59 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Is belief in the existential equality of all human beings delusional? No natural facts support that belief.

Yes. I am worth infinitely more than a quadrillion of you.
Reply
#89
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
Quote:Is belief in Is belief in the existential equality of all human beings delusional? No natural facts support that belief.the existential equality of all human beings delusional? No natural facts support that belief.
Aside the natural fact that your statement is wrong and founded on your delusional apologetics.

Quote:What is delusional is to rely on the judgment of God constantly there to give measurement and value to all things while at the same time using all that and denying him.
Too bad we don't use your god to measure anything other then how absurd you are .


Quote:What is extremely delusional is to claim you represent exactly what God would be, and using that to deny his existence with the design of this world.
Too bad no ones doing that 


Quote:We are to recognize and not choose his beautiful names, but come to each of them, the guides, the leaders, in submission and in peace and not at war with them to hold on to a delusional ego that will surely perish and not last.
And this is crazed mystic babble.

(September 2, 2018 at 1:28 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:
(September 2, 2018 at 12:59 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Is belief in the existential equality of all human beings delusional? No natural facts support that belief.

Yes.   I am worth infinitely more than a quadrillion of you.
And even that's a lower estimate
Seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy -- myself.

Inuit Proverb

Reply
#90
RE: When is a Religious Belief Delusional?
(September 2, 2018 at 2:06 pm)Tizheruk Wrote:
Quote:What is extremely delusional is to claim you represent exactly what God would be, and using that to deny his existence with the design of this world.
Too bad no ones doing that 
I can make a thread filling it with examples of Atheists doing exactly this on these forums and it would be pages and pages of examples.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Sexual Satisfaction Correlated with Religious Belief Neo-Scholastic 38 4619 September 10, 2022 at 4:35 am
Last Post: Niblo
  Belief in white Jesus linked to racism Silver 91 8978 January 1, 2022 at 7:35 pm
Last Post: Ferrocyanide
  Do you think Scientology sells anyone on its belief? Sweden83 19 2412 December 25, 2020 at 8:34 pm
Last Post: Smaug
  The Dunning-Kruger Effect and Religious Belief AFTT47 18 5045 March 11, 2019 at 7:19 am
Last Post: downbeatplumb
  Bare minimum for belief in Christianity. ignoramus 37 8714 May 10, 2018 at 1:24 am
Last Post: Minimalist
  "How God got started", how god belief + basic reason + writing -> modern humans? Whateverist 26 7970 October 15, 2017 at 12:12 pm
Last Post: Gawdzilla Sama
  Knowledge, belief, and honesty. Mystic 29 4748 March 19, 2017 at 6:49 pm
Last Post: Mr Greene
  How to become a God, in 3 simple steps (absent faith/belief): ProgrammingGodJordan 91 17473 November 28, 2016 at 9:08 pm
Last Post: ProgrammingGodJordan
  Do people hate the actual belief in God, or just the religious organizations? goombah111 101 28989 November 14, 2016 at 4:19 am
Last Post: goombah111
  An omniscient, non-decietful entity tells you what the right 'belief' is... Cecelia 4 2635 September 18, 2015 at 10:37 pm
Last Post: Pyrrho



Users browsing this thread: 3 Guest(s)