Because the bible tells you so?

[The Grand Nudger]

The point that I am trying to get across is that I want you to argue with what I say. Not what you'll anticipate I'll say

-and I have.  I think that what you said was absurd, frankly, and I would like you to demonstrate how you know that it was true...that the system presented in the bible was the best possible system for the world, or the israelites....at that time.  

No, its completely different. Most theists don't even know what the bible says. A point often repeated on these boards. So, ignorance from the bible, yet credulity to your church is not equivalent. Most witnesses can explain their beliefs with scriptures. Mormons for example, will not even use the book of mormon for their beliefs. They might go to the pearl of great price or the doctrines and covenants. If a catholic or mormon wants to show me their framework based on the scriptures then its a different story. 

You know that they can, you simply disagree with their interpretations.  

It seems to be a favorite pastime on these boards to point out all of the hypocrisy of christians. Especially when it comes to Jesus own words. But for me, I'll start with the Trinity. Jesus said that no one is good, including himself, but god in heaven. He said that God was the only being that knew when the end would come, even he himself didn't know at that time. When he got baptized, gods voice was heard saying, "this is my son the approved" so for starters, I don't believe anyone can say they truly follow christ and believe that he is equal to god. Sure, you can pick a scripture here and there that says what you want but you're ignoring the composite picture of the scriptures

I'm not looking to point out any hypocrisy Nica......?  Look, I don't believe in the trinity either..and I think that the scriptures don't make the case -to my satisfaction-...but I understand that I'm rigging the game when I say that.  I'm only trying to help you understand that this is also true for you.  In this case, I think it's more an issue of your having been raised to believe that this is true, rather than it actually being true - and it certainly seems to have -nothing- to do with your ability to demonstrate that your conclusion is true (unless you'd like to provide that? -it's not a requirement....of course).  They were raised with a similar framework but within a different sect of the faith..and so think the same of you and your beliefs, and your interpretations of what scripture means....and don;t worry, I think that their remarks on your faith.....equally ridiculous to me...are in a the same position. 

Without some way to conclude that your sect, and your interpretations are the correct ones -and this can't simply be assumed-, the christer obsession with calling all of the other christers less christian, and themselves True Christians™...is DOA.  I, personally, can't arbitrate that disagreement of opinion between the groups because they will each, despite your claim above, be able to provide me with chapter and verse for their beliefs.  I can only say that I think that they are all being ridiculous, that the scriptures are fiction...but that doesn't help to arbitrate that disagreement, eh?  It doesn't actually matter to me whether that disagreement between the two of you is hypocritical, all that seems relevant to me is that neither of you can express this situation in a manner which removes the pure, obvious, and simple bias involved.  I don't have any reason to -trust- the conclusions reached by either side of that disagreement.

-and neither do you.

[Angrboda]

3) It feels like it must be true

5) It makes me feel good inside to believe in it

What if these two are the same thing, that we determine whether something is true by how thinking about it makes us feel? ("I felt sure this was the right path." "I feel confident about my answer." "It just felt right.") How do we distinguish a 'right' thought from a 'wrong' thought? It isn't that a light bulb goes off in our head, we get a feeling about the right thought, a positive feeling, and a negative feeling about the wrong thought.

Robert Burton in his book On Being Certain gives the example of returning to one's home town for a reunion after having been away for 20 years. We have plans to meet up with an old friend at his house before the reunion. Going on memory, we drive to his house. We get to the door and it opens and a complete stranger appears. You ask about your friend, but the stranger explains that your friend has never lived here, not now or ever. What went wrong? You were sure that this was his house. How could that feeling have been wrong?

Burton suggests that we differentiate right from wrong thoughts by how our brain makes us feel about that thought -- it's a feeling that guides us when we think we've hit upon the correct answer. But that feeling can be generated even when we're not right.

If that is the case, is it so wrong for a person to depend on such feelings to tell them what thoughts about religion are right and which ones are not?

[The Grand Nudger]

I suppose that it's a good thing we have more than just our feelings to guide us to truth, eh?

That said, I'm happy to concede that I often "go with my gut" even when I -know- that my gut is wrong.  

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvJj7SN9EWI

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In that situation above, btw, I think I'd have to ask the guy  if he wanted to grab a beer with me...I knocked on the door to meet a friend...after all. 

[Angrboda]

I suppose that it's a good thing we have more than just our feelings to guide us to truth, eh?

We do? What 'something more' do we have?

[The Grand Nudger]

You and I both use logic and reason, do we not?  Is that based on our feelings? We both see value in the scientific method...is that based on our feelings? Both of us can discern between what "feels true" and what "is true" as subjects - we recognize that there can be a difference...how would our feelings provide us with that recognition? How did either of us come to that if how we feel about something was all either of us had for determining truth?

[Angrboda]

You and I both use logic and reason, do we not?  Is that based on our feelings?  

Yes, I believe it is.  How do we determine when our logic in a particular instance is correct?  What is the sign in our brains that we have correctly construed the logic?  Is it a flash of light?  Does the correct logic float in the air suspended upon an angelic cloud?  What is the signal to our brain that the logic is correct?

a) 9 x 5 = 12

b) 8 + 3 = 11

c) 8 + 3 = 0

What happened in your mind when you contemplated b) that didn't happen with a) or c) ? (or vice versa)

Doesn't c) just 'feel wrong'?  Or did you go look up the answer with google? (I get 'a feeling' that the '= 0' part is bad somehow.)

We both see value in the scientific method...is that based on our feelings?  Both of us can discern between what "feels true" and what "is true" as subjects - we recognize that there can be a difference...how would our feelings provide us with that recognition?  How did either of us come to that if how we feel about something was all either of us had for determining truth?

(bold mine)

You're misunderstanding what I'm saying.  It isn't how we feel about something, it's that our brain produces different feelings when it concludes we are right about something than it produces when we are wrong about something.  This (supposedly) is the meta-cognitive signal to our consciousness when we apprehend something correctly or incorrectly.  Take another example.  The stranger you meet knows your friend and gives you directions to his house.  You pull up in front of the house, but it just looks wrong.  You get a bad feeling about this.  Now, how does 'logic' help you determine whether that bad feeling is correct, and this is the wrong house, prior to your going up to the house and knocking on the door?  All you have is a 'feeling' about the rightness or wrongness of the house.  That's the type of feeling I'm talking about.  You go throughout your day making decisions based upon that little voice inside your head.  It's not a literal voice, but a set of feelings which guide your choosing, that tell you that c) is wrong and b) is right.

Almost a century and a half later, the neurologist Antonio Damasio encountered a patient whom he called “a modern Phineas Gage.” The patient, whom he referred to as Elliot, was in his 30s and had undergone a radical personality change after an operation to remove a brain tumor on the surface of his frontal lobes. Elliot’s intelligence, his ability to move, and his ability to use language were not harmed by the operation. But, like Phineas Gage, Elliot seemed to have lost the ability to make decisions and plan for the future. Since the operation, the formerly stable Elliot had started several ill-conceived business ventures, gotten himself bankrupt, and had two divorces. “The tragedy of this otherwise healthy and intelligent man was that he was neither stupid nor ignorant, and yet he acted often as if he were,” said Damasio. “The machinery for his decision making was so flawed that he could no longer be an effective social being.”

Damasio struggled to figure out why Elliot had lost the ability to plan and make decisions. After all, his reason stayed entirely intact. Elliot scored above average on a battery of tests to determine the state of his rational mind—for long-term memory, short-term memory, perceptual ability, new learning, language, the ability to do arithmetic, the ability to make estimates based on incomplete knowledge, and logical competence. “After all these tests,” wrote Damasio, “Elliot emerged as a man with a normal intellect who was unable to decide properly, especially when the decision involved personal and social matters. Could it be that reasoning and decision making in the personal and social domain were different from reasoning and thinking in domains concerning objects, space, numbers, and words?”

It was at this point that Damasio gave Elliot a test that showed one additional post-operation change. Elliot had lost the ability to feel emotion. The case of Elliot led Damasio to the conclusion that the age-old dichotomy between emotions and reason is false. Emotions are crucial to reason, especially reasoning about social and personal issues. And while too much emotion can obstruct reason, according to Damasio, reduction in emotion can be an equally important source of irrational behavior. “The cold-bloodedness of Elliot’s reasoning,” writes Damasio, “prevented him from assigning different values to different options, and made his decision-making landscape hopelessly flat.” 9   In a complex world with so many factors affecting our decisions, the heart needs to play a prominent role.

[Jenny A]

I'll take a crack at this.  I was raised in a very Christian house and much bible reading went on.  I have read the thing cover to cover more times than I'd like to admit.  

Lately, I've been very disinterested in anything to do with religion, which is probably why I've been so inactive with a majority of the discussions here. I just have a hard time taking it seriously. For me, the problem starts with man writing the bible; I can't get past that fact to lend myself to any other argument for the existence of a biblical god. Things only get slightly more fun with discussions on non-personal, I.D style gods, but not by much.

Now, I know that most Abrahamic theists believe that the authors were divinely inspired, but that's so fucking weak, so here are a few questions I'd like answered (yeah, this shit again):

1. What are your reasons for believing the authors were divinely inspired? (I'm not looking for definitive proof or anything, just your reason, so "because the bible says" is perfectly acceptable to me.)

Faith, pure and simple.  Or if you like it better, because the paster/pope/preacher/my mother, says so.  The Bible doesn't really say it's divinely inspired and it wasn't really assembled as a definitive collection of scripture until some time after the individual books were written.

2. What do you make of the fact that written language is a human invention?

I'm interested in what the Bible makes of it.  In Genesis the answer it nothing.  In fact up until Exodus, there's little if any reference to writing at all.  The ten commandments (though not the ones traditionally referred to as the ten commandments) are written in stone, but most things aren't written at all.  It is only around the time of the Babylonian captivity that scripture becomes a real part of the Hebrew religion.  God begins at that point to talk in writing.  And the writing is considered magical.  It magically appears on walls.  Scripture found in the temple proves the right way to worship.  Prophets eat the written word to become enlightened and so on.  

By the time of Jesus there was a body of Hebrew scripture much of which was translated into Greek for the benefit of Jews who no longer spoke Hebrew.  Jesus refers to scripture for authority, though the OT was not yet codified when he was preaching.  But Christians make no real effort to create Christian scripture for decades following Jesus' death.  And the oldest parts of the NT, i.e. Paul's letters were not written with the intent of creating scripture.  

3. Is there anybody that you know of who you would believe if they told you some stuff they wrote was the word of god, or divinely inspired? Why or why not?

No, not really.  But it's clear people can be brought to believe that writings by their fellows are scripture.  Exhibit A:  Joseph Smith.

4. What role does time play in the believability of a claim that some written words are the word of god?

In the case of the Bible, it appears to be a major part of it.  Belief in the authority of the NT was established rather slowly.

5. Do you think religion would exist if writing was never invented?

Why not?  It did before writing and there are many unwritten religions which still exist.  However, oral religions don't seem to have quite the same conversion power.

[The Grand Nudger]

Ah, yeah, I misread.   However, to continue. 

c) 8 + 3 = 0


What happened in your mind when you contemplated b) that didn't happen with a) or c) ? (or vice versa)

Doesn't c) just 'feel wrong'?  Or did you go look up the answer with google?

Neither, honestly.  I don't have feelings about math.  I add the numbers.  8+3=11.  I've been drilled on simple addition for a long time..so it may be that I remember the answer as well.  You?  This, it would seem, offers an answer to the question of how we determine our logic is correct regardless of whether or not our brains poduce a chemical which tells us that we're on the right track (even if we may not be).  I have, in the past and present, felt that...while knowing that I wasn't.  It's an interesting experience, imo.   


I certainly didn't decide that 8+3=0 was wrong because I felt that it was......I'm not even sure what that means, in context...but maybe my brain just doesn't produce those chemicals when it handles math, or maybe I ignore them...I wouldn't know, eh?  The only thing I can say with certainty in this instance is that I don't have to rely on those feelings, whether present or not (however manufactured), in order to determine that 8+3 does not, in fact, yield 0. The rules of the system decide whether or not I am right or wrong, not the chemicals my brain produces, and the rules of the system have jack shit to do with the chemicals my brain produces (it aint my system eh?).

The stranger you meet knows your friend and gives you directions to his house. You pull up in front of the house, but it just looks wrong. You get a bad feeling about this. Now, how does 'logic' help you determine whether that bad feeling is correct, and this is the wrong house, prior to your going up to the house and knocking on the door? All you have is a 'feeling' about the rightness or wrongness of the house. That's the type of feeling I'm talking about. You go throughout your day making decisions based upon that little voice inside your head. It's not a literal voice, but a set of feelings which guide your choosing, that tell you that c) is wrong and b) is right.

I am -intimately- familiar with that feeling, though not so much in regards to a friends house. I'll take a cautious approach, weighing the consequences of ignoring intuition against the consequences of my intuition being wrong (not likely in service of truth, mind you, more likely in service of survival)..but, generally, when something "just doesn't look right" to me...I can identify the reason. That dirt over there on the side of the porch is darker than the dirt around it..almost like something is buried.....and buried things, in my experience, go "boom". I think the problem here is that the question asks me to assume that there is -only- a "feeling"...when , in my experience...that's just not the case..rather that my feelings have an impetus that can be and often is identifiable. You gave plenty of reason to be suspicious in that question. A stranger directed me to a place that looks wrong. Do I need any more reasons to be leary?

If I did find myself in a position of feeling alone - no easily discernible logical reason....I'd doubt that it represented truth..as I do when I walk out into my yard on a night with a full moon and, for a moment, really feel that there is something human, but inhuman..in the woods..watching me. That's precisely when I kick the logic into overdrive (and I know it sounds silly coming from an adult...I can't shake that feeling, that fear, that dread, regardless of what I know to be true, or..rather, untrue about it). Here again, I have means other than my intuition or a chemical cocktail provided to me by my brain alone....available.

I never ask myself, for example, whether or not some proposition "feels logical" or "feels true" - I apply the system (like I apply addition) and tell my ridiculous feelings -the pharmecuetical company in my head- to go fuck themselves. Otherwise I'd be hiding under my house with a rifle to this very day..lol. I offer this last, longer bit -not- as an argument or rebuttal, more as a description of my experiencing of feeling that there is a truly a monster in the woods, while knowing that there is truly not. In either case we could attribute that to chemical cocktails.....but one side of that experience has more than -just- the cocktail operating on it - it would seem.

Perhaps an even more amusing example of this is that I'm airborne...but afraid of heights. I don;t actually think, when I jump, that I'll be oklay. My brain screams to me that I'm about to fucking off myself..despite having done it many many times. The feeling doesn't even go away when my feet hit terra firma (I;d chalk that down to the lasting effect of a chemical released in my brain, for sure). I feel like the notion that I'm going to die is true.....even though I know that it isn't both via logic and simple experience. You have anything like that?

[robvalue]

Sure, I can certainly agree I feel a certain kind of emotion, state of mind, call it what you will. A kind of "this is right" or "this is wrong". However, I'm aware this is my intuition/subconcious at least some of the time. I try and check myself by seeing if I can logically support the conclusion.

For example, I was doing a puzzle my wife showed me. I had the feeling that a certain number was the answer, I felt about 95% sure, but I couldn't say why. I didn't trust that feeling until I could demonstrate to myself that it was actually correct. As it turned out, I was right.

I suppose the skill is recognising when your intuition/subconcious has leapt to a conclusion, and to rewind and see if it's logical or not. I'm sure I fall foul of it plenty of times, I'm not claiming I'm perfect or anywhere near. But when we're on a discussion forum like this, it's a great opportunity for people to really examine those feelings, those conclusions, those beliefs and see if they can back them up with reason. If they can't, that's fine, they have no obligation to. But if I couldn't back up my beliefs with reason, I'd want to know about it and to find out if I was holding phoney ones.

[Angrboda]

The stranger you meet knows your friend and gives you directions to his house.  You pull up in front of the house, but it just looks wrong.  You get a bad feeling about this.  Now, how does 'logic' help you determine whether that bad feeling is correct, and this is the wrong house, prior to your going up to the house and knocking on the door?  All you have is a 'feeling' about the rightness or wrongness of the house.  That's the type of feeling I'm talking about.  You go throughout your day making decisions based upon that little voice inside your head.  It's not a literal voice, but a set of feelings which guide your choosing, that tell you that c) is wrong and b) is right.

If I did find myself in a position of feeling alone - no easily discernible logical reason....I'd doubt that it represented truth..as I do when I walk out into my yard on a night with a full moon and, for a moment, really feel that there is something human, but inhuman..in the woods..watching me.  That's precisely when I kick the logic into overdrive (and I know it sounds silly coming from an adult...I can't shake that feeling, that fear, that dread, regardless of what I know to be true, or..rather, untrue about it).  Here again, I have means other than my intuition or a chemical cocktail provided to me by my brain alone....available.

My point was just that emotion plays a role in our determining what's true or not. Even in your negative example, it was a particular feeling which triggered you to kick logic into overdrive. And when it comes to religious matters, the feeling may be the thing in our experience that we predominately have to go on. This is especially true when ritual thoughts and ritual actions play with the soup in our brain (raising your hands overhead, singing, chanting, touching things, all these have subtle but profound effects on that soup), ramping up the pleasurable feelings associated with the religious activity.