On Hell and Forgiveness

[robvalue]

What I was getting at is that people surrounded by others who share a delusion are having it reinforced. It’s natural for this to keep it going, and for them to not even question it. It takes a lot to go against the status quo.

But if you don’t have that reinforcement, it’s natural to expect it to become exposed for what it is.

This applies to any delusion, including any I am having.

[The Grand Nudger]

How would you know how logic works, Neo?  Apparently, you think that the bit above about the literal word of god not being meant to be taken literally was a logical defense of your mental state as regards the same.

It's the idea that a fairy sat down and ghostwrote magic book that's delusional...not the notion that an author might enjoy a metaphor here and there.

[vulcanlogician]

Oh fuck that.  She's as mean as any of us here.  She just uses kindness as a cover.  She passive-aggressively uses derision to demean people she doesn't respect.  She's offensive in her own way, you've just bought into her schtick.
...
That's fucking funny you say that when the people not being open minded about it are CL and Neo.  Yet me and Kit are getting all the shit for talking about it.  I think you're confused about what's actually what here, vulcan.

Look. I got annoyed with the thread a few pages back when the conversation became entangled in easily-resolved semantics. As to my thoughts concerning open-mindedness and what it might be like to post here as a theist, those were my sincere, direct assessments of those two issues and were not meant to be directed at you or kit. They were in response to aroura's comments (and thus indirectly in response to Kit's posts, I suppose). Aside from that, take what I said at face value.

Whether or not a theist's perceptions of God represent a "delusion" (in the sense of being a firmly maintained yet irrational belief) was the conversation I was interested in having. That conversation didn't happen. It didn't even come close to happening. It started to happen for like a second, and then this other, very stupid conversation about mental illness happened instead.

FWIW, I share your attitude concerning the stigmatization of mental illness. I also think that some of CL's earlier statements demonstrated a lack of insight concerning a mentally ill person's capacity to generate justified criticisms--something I didn't quite catch on my first readthrough of her posts. Were I of a different temperament, I might have drawn a line in the sand over it. But I tend to favor aroura's approach, and I said as much in my last post that you quoted.

I do have claws; they're simply retractable. I feel no need to go for CL's jugular. By internet metrics, I find her to be quite reasonable and sincere. Show me some unbridled ignorance and I'll reveal my fangs. Otherwise, I think like this.

It's quite possible that I'm "confused about what's actually what." If that's the case, then you have problems with CL that aren't my problems. And (if that's the case) you should certainly understand that what I said couldn't possibly have been directed at you.

---

Despite not knowing how that statistic was derived,I suspect that had the question been asked differently the number would change. Is the bible literally the Word of God? IMO yes. Is everything in the Word of God to be taken literally? IMO no. Do you see the difference?

That post was pointed at one person in particular, to deflect a claim that only a minority can be deluded.

[The Grand Nudger]

It would be a short convo, mostly because it's trivially easy to show that the faithful have a strong preference for their fantasy over any reality where their fantasy is..well.. a fantasy.  They don't even mind saying so.  

The reason that they don't think of it as a delusion is that they're convinced god is really real...but amusingly, their beliefs about gods wouldn't escape notice as irrational by default of a gods existence. I think we'd be hard pressed to find a single human being who doesn't have some irrational beliefs about very real things which they would prefer to be true even if they weren't or aren't.

[robvalue]

(Continuing to talk to myself out loud...)

I wouldn’t call a generic belief in a creator a delusion. I’d call it an unfounded belief. (I’m not saying it’s wrong. I have no opinion.)

But when this progresses to knowing things about the creator, and especially interacting with it, then it’s a delusion.

It doesn’t really matter what you call it though. It’s almost all down to indoctrination.

[polymath257]

There are a lot of deconverted theists on this site.  Logic can and does work. 

Logic is a tool. It works both ways. People have different life experiences, ways of observing, and values (among other things). Those yield different premises. As a result, the application of logic can, and has, resulted in various conclusions. Very few people dispute the apparent inexorable logic of either Aquinas or Spinoza, yet both came to very different conclusions.

Or they don't see the logic of Aquinas or Spinoza to be inexorable. I personally find Aquinas to be trivially wrong and Spinoza to be, well, redefining the central concept.

[The Grand Nudger]

See, I actually like spinoza...but I have a novel take.  The man was trolling the religious when trolling the religious was still an offense punishable by summary execution, lol.

In a more academic tone, his place in time necessitated and leads to a stronger connection to the idea of gods and theism than would be warranted or present if he dropped his metaphysics on our heads today. In sum, he considered nature to be metaphysically ultimate. That all properties and qualities assigned to a god (and everything else) were, in actuality, properties of nature. What has all known and possible attributes? Why..nature does. If there is only one substance what is that substance? Nature. What are all known and possible things a part and piece of? Nature again.

This didn't escape his contemporaries - they called him an atheist for a reason.

[polymath257]

See, I actually like spinoza...but I have a novel take.  The man was trolling the religious when trolling the religious was still an offense punishable by summary execution, lol.

Yes, there is that....

[Amarok]

Logic is a tool. It works both ways. People have different life experiences, ways of observing, and values (among other things). Those yield different premises. As a result, the application of logic can, and has, resulted in various conclusions. Very few people dispute the apparent inexorable logic of either Aquinas or Spinoza, yet both came to very different conclusions.

 Aquinas and logic don't mix 

Spinoza was interesting but wrong 

And this whole conclusion is bullocks

[Aroura]

If we can get back on topic, does anyone care to comment on why religious beliefs were specifically exempted in the definition of delusion?

I find it interesting that those beliefs needed mentioning at all. There was nothing stating in what way religious beliefs differs from delusion, simply that it is exempt. It essentially acknowledges that it IS a delusion, but one that people generally find socially acceptable. Like how we view caffeine differently than say, heroine. They are both addictive substances, but one is more socially acceptable. That's maybe not the best example but I've been reading about coffee addiction recently so it came mind.