Theists, are you immune to being decieved?

[feeling]

How does someone with a broken "God antenna" know that their minority world view isn't the deluded state?

Majority view doesn't equal reality.

Like when whole world thought the earth was flat. Interesting perspective.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Seems to me that atheists might try answering the same question: do we think we're immune to being deceived? I'd like to think we'd answer yes, we are capable of that. But I'm not so sure what percentage of us would admit it. Obviously if we're deceived, we're not aware of it. I'm sure we would beat the percentage the theists on this site would put up. But I'm pleased that the number of them who answered yes would not be zero.

Decieved? Of course! However, I take comfort in the value I've placed on revising my belief in the event that evidence is raised that points to it being supported by a deception. I hold beliefs in a number of different degrees of certainty, none of which are immune to revision.


With regards to God specifically, it is perfectly clear that there are cognitive obstacles that prevent one from revising their belief. Coincidentally, this is true for most subjective trues. There seems to be no checks and balances in place that improve the reliability of their belief, and reliability doesn't really apply to the subjective, does it? Aren't we all the determining factor of what is subjectively true?

Is there a difference between recognizing that one has misconstrued reality, and one that is ignoring reality all together?

[Statler Waldorf]

When you keep saying I've admitted that natural laws require a creator, when the entire time I've made no bones about how completely made up my creator scenario was, and that the point I was making was something else entirely, then yes, you are misrepresenting my position.

No I am not; I am making a reasonable inference about your position. I asked you to account for such laws consistently within your view of reality (materialism). Every attempt you have put forth has involved a creator or creative agent, so I am assuming that you cannot account for such laws without invoking a creative agent. You could always prove me wrong by actually accounting for such laws in a manner that is consistent with your materialism. However, I suspect that if you could actually do so you would have by now.

I just wanted you to admit it before I called that on the huge argument from ignorance you just committed. How the hell would you know what is and isn't available in the future?

Easy, logical contradictions cannot exist and such events in the future would lead to logical contradictions. I also know that there will never be any married bachelors, round squares, or odd numbers divisible by 2 in the future either.

Quite the opposite: the argument from ignorance goes "I don't know X, therefore X cannot be true." If I'd said that since Position A hasn't got an answer for B yet, it could never have an answer for B (which seems to be your position) then I would be guilty of an argument from ignorance. Saying that Position A hasn't yet accounted for B, but may do so in future, is specifically avoiding the argument from ignorance.

No, an argument from ignorance can work either direction. However, as you will see your position leads to logical absurdities. Given my logic we can make the following statements…

-Pigs cannot fly because we have never seen a pig fly
-Materialism cannot account for the laws of nature because no materialist has done so yet.

Given your logic you’d have to argue…

-Pigs can fly, we just have not seen one do it yet.
-Materialism can account for the laws of nature -we just have not seen a materialist do so yet.

Clearly my position is the only rational position here.

I swear, every single argument you make is like a complete inversion of reality or logic.

This will be the case when pigs fly.

And as I've mentioned like seven times now, and this was the point of my initial time travel argument that you've been fleeing from at top speed, making shit up to account for something doesn't say anything about its veracity.

And as I have pointed out like seven times now, your time travel argument did not actually account for the laws of nature because it violated the law of non-contradiction and was also guilty of a category error.
You still have to deal with the fact that your view of reality cannot even account for such things. This is nothing short of a fatal flaw in the materialistic conceptual scheme.

All you've done is clung to a story of magic that you think explains everything, all the while giving absolutely no mechanism and therefore explaining nothing, and you think that gives your position more credibility:

Where did I say anything about magic? It does give my position more credibility because my view of reality makes more sense of actual reality than yours does.

until you can demonstrate that your position is correct, however much it accounts for anything means nothing, because there are dozens of fictional answers that could do the same thing.

It means everything because it is the only conceptual scheme that can account for such things in a logically consistent manner. You assert that there are dozens of other conceptual schemes that account for such things but you have yet to actually present any. Couple that with the fact that your conceptual scheme cannot account for such things and you have got serious problems.

Meanwhile, over here, I'm keeping an open mind and waiting for the evidence to come in.

No, you are adhering to your position upon blind faith hoping the evidence comes in. I prefer the view of reality that is already supported by the evidence. How ironic is this? The atheist is now appealing to blind faith and the theist is appealing to the evidence.

You know, the rational view? And yet my position, where I only believe things that are demonstrable, is somehow one that requires blind faith, while yours, where you go for the answer that you want to believe, regardless of evidence, doesn't?

If you only believe in that which is demonstrable then demonstrate where the laws of nature came from and how they are upheld.

Except that I answered that by appealing to the future again, and the only response you had was to categorically deny that the technology I require could exist in the future, which is something you can't possibly know.

Sure I can, logical contradictions are not possible (even in the future). The fact you have to resort to such irrationality to defend your position demonstrates that your position is logically indefensible.

Equally, I could just say that your god is irrational because magic isn't real, but unlike you I recognize that simply asserting bullshit that I want to be true isn't much of an argument. One needs evidence.

God’s creation of the laws of nature does not violate the law of non-contradiction (unlike your time travel example).

What a compelling and well thought out response.

You’re not compelled to be logical? Then why are we having this discussion?

Do you have any concept of how little credibility your baseless assertions have, here?

I was simply agreeing with your assertion that creation and magic are different things.

No thanks, unlike you I'd like to work with a full complement of facts. I'll happily run through the problems with the vanilla version of the argument, but I'd rather not be accused of strawmanning whatever version you're using; why not just present your little doodad, so I can tailor my response to that specifically?

I’d prefer to keep the discussion on topic and continue holding your feet to the flames. We are discussing how my view of reality can account for the laws of nature and yours cannot.

Yes: all the evidence.

You have evidence demonstrating that the laws of nature arose and are upheld through purely material and natural means? By all means then, please present it!

You made an assertion. That means absolutely nothing. I could do the same, as I've already pointed out; I don't, because "nuh uh!" isn't actually an argument that adults should use. And again, in doing so you still missed the actual point I was making...

Where did I make merely an assertion? If my assertion that my view of reality can account for the laws of nature and yours cannot is in error then by all means show me how. Thus far, the fact that you are allowing it to stand unrefuted is rather telling.

Here is your logic using your same analogy…

A: “Where do hotdogs come from?”
B: “People make them.”
A: “How do people make them?”
B: “I do not know; I have never been to the plant.”
A: “Well, why don't we go and find out?”
B: "No, they must have been made by magic."
A: "What?
B: "Magic."
A: "But magic doesn't exist, as far as we know."
B: "Hotdogs are made by magic. Anything else is illogical. Without magic, you can't make any meat. "
A: "You just said you hadn't been to the factory."
B: "Magic accounts for how hotdogs are made. You can't account for that, and therefore I'm right."
A: “Huh?”

Tread lightly; you’re only supposed to use the quote functions if you are accurately quoting a poster. I never said anything about magic so you have yet to actually address my position.

B: "Magic."
A: "But magic doesn't exist, as far as we know."

No no no! According to you this is a fallacious argument from ignorance. Magic does exist, we will simply discover this in the future just like we will discover in the future that your position actually can account for natural laws.

Just asserting your answer is correct doesn't make it so.

Have you not been paying attention? My position is proven correct through logical negation. The logical negation of my position (your position) cannot make sense of reality.

And your made up reason isn't correct just because you decided to say it is. Besides, there's another argument from ignorance here, which is that you've no way of knowing whether the laws of nature will stay the same in every circumstance. You're just asserting it.

You’re wrong again. I do know, because He who created the laws of nature and who is upholding them has revealed to us that they will stay uniform in the future (Genesis 8). This is just another example of how the Christian view of reality and only the Christian view of reality can actually make sense of what we all believe to be the case.

I love how your every position is based on ignorance.

Thus far the only one of the two of us who seems to be ignorant of the answers is you.

So you can't refute me without an argument from ignorance? That's all I needed to know.

Refute what? You have not provided anything.

Floontium is made of Floontium, Stat. Try to keep up. And Floontium ensures the natural laws remain stable over time, because so far, there has always been Floontium.

If Floontium is made of material then it is subject to the same natural laws that all other materials are subject to; so you did not account for anything because your explanation requires that natural laws exist in order for itself to exist.

You don't actually know what an argument from ignorance is, do you Stat?

Sure I do. An argument from ignorance is arguing that something is true simply because it has not been proven false (or vice versa). You love using them.

Nah, I am really not even trying. You've been refuted so many times that it's grown old. Now I'm just sitting back and watching you, and the other atheists, tie yourself into logical knots.

It really is amazing isn’t it? Now an atheist of all people is appealing to blind faith. He’d rather have faith that his materialism will someday come up with an answer (how someone who only believes in the material could ever explain the existence and origin of immaterial laws of nature is beyond me) than just adopt theism which has had a perfectly logical answer for centuries. It reminds me of when Christ says that they could see a dead man rise from the dead and still not believe.

You invoke an entity to account for something that I admit I cannot account for. I am not entirely convinced that they need be accounted for, or are necessarily something absolute as you seem to think they are.

According to the rules of proper reasoning you must provide sufficient reasons for believing what you believe (For every fact F, there must be an explanation why F is the case [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]). Thus far you are violating that rule by having no reason for believing in laws of nature and yet believing they have always existed and will continue to exist.

Nonetheless, there's nothing dishonest about admitting when my understanding comes to a hault.

Yes there is, if you claim to know such laws have always existed and will continue to exist but cannot explain how you know this.

You are being intellectually dishonest by praying on my humility (which you seem to view as theft) and using it as an opportunity to plug in your God (for which you cannot account for), If you can believe in God without being able to account for his existence, how is it you then take issue with my recognition of reality? There are things in reality I don't understand, you maintain that you understand everything, yet you cannot account for God or justify your invocation of your particular version? You cannot distinguish your God as the real God over all others that are being solicited. You have no foundation for your belief other than a really old text. You are just claiming to have answers and pleading for special exceptions so as to be granted immunity with regards to providing explanations. Which one of us is "engaging in intellectual laziness"?

You are completely mistaken though. Unlike the laws of nature, God is by definition a non-contingent, absolutely self-sufficient, and ultimately sufficient being. Such a being therefore requires no causal agent or mechanism in order to exist. I can however account for why I believe in the existence of such a being. You cannot account for why you believe in the existence of the laws of nature nor can you account for their origin since they are contingent laws.

[Anomalocaris]

Nah, I am really not even trying. You've been refuted so many times that it's grown old. Now I'm just sitting back and watching you, and the other atheists, tie yourself into logical knots.

With powers as contemptible as yours, what indeed would be the point for you to try? It is beyond your power to ever do better than simply deluding yourself.

[Statler Waldorf]

With powers as contemptible as yours, what indeed would be the point for you to try? It is beyond your power to ever do better than simply deluding yourself.

Do you ever get bored while typing the exact same meaningless post over 5,000 times? Or do you just use copy and paste?

[The_Thinking_Theist]

In recent conversations with a few of our resident Theists, I've been asking them a question that has yet to be answered.

How do you know you are not delusional?

I can see how somebody would find this to be a question intended to offend. Theists are convinced that the feelings they derive from their belief confirm the truth of the God they associate them with, and so to them, of course it's not a delusion.

They feel it in their hearts, and their mind backs it up. It all falls in line with exactly what they've been told to expect. All one has to do is expel all doubt and give in to the truth of their God, and others would experience what they experience. (coincidentally, this would be true for any God claim). The fact that so many others make exclusive and yet incompatible claims makes no difference. The others must be mistaken because the convinced Theist needs only to know what they feel personally about their God to know that they are right, and the others are wrong. Their subjective experience of the belief they hold in God could not allow them to misconstrue the truth.

But the question remains...How do they know they're not delusional? How can they trust what they've attributed to this personal experience that creates an unwavering conviction? I saw this video today and a creepy feeling came over me. I recommend it to Theists and Atheists alike. It's provides some interesting insight on the mind of the believer. As usual, I look forward to reading everyone's feedback. See ya around the forums!

I know I'm not delusional because I don't exhibit schizoid personality traits nor do I have symptoms of a type B personality disorder.

[Bad Wolf]

I know I'm not delusional because I don't exhibit schizoid personality traits nor do I have symptoms of a type B personality disorder.

And those are the only reasons?

[The_Thinking_Theist]

I know I'm not delusional because I don't exhibit schizoid personality traits nor do I have symptoms of a type B personality disorder.

And those are the only reasons?

Are they bad reasons?

[Bad Wolf]

Are they bad reasons?

Yes, see the problem with some mad people, is that they are so mad, that they don't realise they are mad. So really, the only way to know that you are not insane is through independent verification i.e. asking other people questions and measuring consistency of the answers

[Zazzy]

Yes, see the problem with some mad people, is that they are so mad, that they don't realise they are mad. So really, the only way to know that you are not insane is through independent verification i.e. asking other people questions and measuring consistency of the answers

This is not going to win friends and influence people, but I am tired of seeing theists on this board labelled as crazy. None of the regular theists here are crazy. I think they're wrong about some things and right about some things- but crazy they are not.

I recognize that it helps people vent some steam, and I certainly can't tell anyone what to do, but it does get old fast.