Negative aspects of Christianity rarely talked about, even by atheists

[Sheldon]

@Belacqua

If someone says "when I do X I reliably get result Y" that's not necessarily a fallacy. In the present case, Emjay is describing his personal experience. To accuse him of such a fallacy, we'd have to argue that the result Y couldn't possibly follow from action X. 

No, we merely have to point out that Y doesn't necessarily follow from X.

Boru

Correct, the fallacy involves claiming that X was caused by Y, because X came after Y, without evidencing it, no one has to disprove anything, in fact claiming it was true until disproved would also be a fallacy, an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

[Belacqua]

With practice, a person can train his mind to take his attention away from things that are upsetting and give more attention to things that aren't upsetting. Then he will feel less upset.

There is no woo there. There is no fallacy there.

[Kitan Etos]

Rather, woo takes advantage of the mental tool.

[The Grand Nudger]

I was cleaning out one of our kilns this morning. Wasn’t super dirty…definitely alot of work to get what little was there. I thought…meh, fuck it, handle that next cycle- I have a lot of other shit to do. As I’m sweeping my way down the hallway the light flicker three times. Immediately my magical thinking kicks in. Thanks universe, for warning me about the fire…wouldn’t want to remember thinking I could put it off while it’s burning.

Did the lights actually flicker because of my decision? No. Is it or could it be useful that I thought so? Yup. Mindfulness, like a lot of self help practice…is often like that. No one actually has a users manual for mind and even the idea that we can electively focus our attention and that doing so will produce a specific effect is not something demonstrably real as opposed to intuitively obvious. As intuitively obvious as the universes warning to me today- which I ofc heeded.

Might have been mark twain that said it…it’s not what you don’t know that will get you in trouble. It’s what you know that just ain’t true.

[emjay]

I was cleaning out one of our kilns this morning.  Wasn’t super dirty…definitely alot of work to get what little was there.  I thought…meh, fuck it, handle that next cycle- I have a lot of other shit to do.  As I’m sweeping my way down the hallway the light flicker three times.  Immediately my magical thinking kicks in.  Thanks universe, for warning me about the fire…wouldn’t want to remember thinking I could put it off while it’s burning.  

Did the lights actually flicker because of my decision?  No.  Is it or could it be useful that I thought so?  Yup.  Mindfulness, like a lot of self help practice…is often like that.  No one actually has a users manual for mind and even the idea that we can electively focus our attention and that doing so will produce a specific effect is not something demonstrably real as opposed to intuitively obvious.  As intuitively obvious as the universes warning to me today- which I ofc heeded.

Might have been mark twain that said it…it’s not what you don’t know that will get you in trouble.  It’s what you know that just ain’t true.

Do you feel the same way about it though if you take the word 'mindfulness', with all of its baggage, out of it, and just say something like 'I focus my attention on what gives me more peace, and take it off, that which gives me less peace'. For me, I often just label mental thoughts/emotions 'M' before returning to present sensations, which feels like a mental reset... in my opinion, but just my opinion, not a claim, just my opinion, it's been one of the most useful/therapeutic, for me, mental things I've learnt to do.

[emjay]

With practice, a person can train his mind to take his attention away from things that are upsetting and give more attention to things that aren't upsetting. Then he will feel less upset.

There is no woo there. There is no fallacy there.

I do agree with you but at the same time I don't think there's much point fighting about it. Going forward, I just have to be better with my wording... and not make what are considered general claims rather than personal experience descriptions etc. Or be more specific about what's a theory and what's a fact etc.

[awty]

With practice, a person can train his mind to take his attention away from things that are upsetting and give more attention to things that aren't upsetting. Then he will feel less upset.

There is no woo there. There is no fallacy there.

I do agree with you but at the same time I don't think there's much point fighting about it. Going forward, I just have to be better with my wording... and not make what are considered general claims rather than personal experience descriptions etc. Or be more specific about what's a theory and what's a fact etc.

My two cents - if you find something that works to get through the day...do it.  That thing may not work for someone else and others may not understand it but if it's good for you and you aren't hurting anyone then go for it.  I think if we look deeply at ourselves, we all do little things, think little things, that make the load lighter and that's a healthy way to deal.

[emjay]

I do agree with you but at the same time I don't think there's much point fighting about it. Going forward, I just have to be better with my wording... and not make what are considered general claims rather than personal experience descriptions etc. Or be more specific about what's a theory and what's a fact etc.

My two cents - if you find something that works to get through the day...do it.  That thing may not work for someone else and others may not understand it but if it's good for you and you aren't hurting anyone then go for it.  I think if we look deeply at ourselves, we all do little things, think little things, that make the load lighter and that's a healthy way to deal.

Thank you Same to you

[emjay]

I think I'm gonna get this off my chest, but que sera sera, and tick tock. This is the first time I've ever seen someone take so much issue with such a simple psychological statement, and to the extent of calling it '[a load of] crap', just to say that changing what you focus on changes your experience (either as I have said or as Bel has said in short a few posts back), in this case, for the better; just by direct, moment by moment, logic, it obviously does that... and I still don't the understand the objection or why it, as it appears to me, seems to be possibly being 'conflated' with superstition (Nudger?) to call it an example of that 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy (Nudger and Angrboda, and maybe more of you). Why on earth is it an outlandish and/or superstitious/'propter'-ish claim to say that changing what you focus on... moment by moment... changes what you experience, again moment by moment?

Does the same objection apply if I place two TVs next to eachother, with one playing a horror film and the other playing, I don't know, a comedy, and then choose (or illusion of choice) to focus on one over the other, why isn't it blatantly obvious logic to you guys that if I choose to focus my attention on the comedy, I will naturally, as a direct and logical consequence of that choice, experience both physically watching the comedy, and whatever logically comes from it, in this case potentially laughter, whereas if I focus on the horror film rather than the comedy, I will in direct, logical consequence be experiencing watching a horror film, and what logically follows or can follow from that, in this case feelings of fear etc. And likewise, with your baggage-full word of 'mindfulness' which simply redirects your attention, in the same way... as a moment by moment choice (or illusion of choice... do I really have to keep saying that? Ffs), away from things that cause you stress (for instance) and onto things that don't or less do. There's nothing woo-ish or superstitious about that, IMO, it's just blatantly obvious, direct moment by moment consequence of moment by moment choice.

I mean WTF is all this about? Why is that superstitious and/or propter-ish to say/'claim'? And if we're at the point of distinguishing between choice and the illusion of choice, or cause and the illusion of cause, or cause and correlation, what's the point of going that deep in this case? Whether you call it choice or just the illusion of choice, or cause vs the illusion of cause, makes no ultimate difference in any practical terms, and if you're using the word 'correlation' in this superstitious looking/propter-ish sense, how on earth do you compare changing what you focus on moment by moment, and the directly obvious logical experiential consequences of that choice... if I look to the left, I see, as a direct, physical conquence of that choice (or illusion of ffs), what is to the left, if I look to the right, I see what is to the right... with superstitious views of causation, of wearing what are considered lucky socks or whatever... there's nothing remotely similar about these two cases, in my opinion. Nothing even slightly superstitious or propter-ish about saying 'if I watch a comedy I may well laugh as a direct consequence of that'. Well duh!

So with all that in mind, it seems to me much more likely that it's the negative 'baggage' of this word 'mindfulness', that's led to all of this... i.e. can you honestly say that you would attack me so much if I hadn't used the word 'mindfulness', and just said something like 'I changed my attention to something that caused me less stress'... would you really call that a load of crap, and a statement that needs a million qualifications to say, such as 'or illusion of'?

[Sheldon]

Silas Vane Wrote: As a Christian, if someone survives despite an operation going badly, I can thank God for their survival without pretending the doctors did nothing.

Just pretending that a deity did something? Or do we have anything tangible that correlates the outcome to the will of a deity?

Also I asked several times, if you believe anything happens without or against your deity's will? Which of course is salient to the claim here.

Silas Vane Wrote:
Likewise, when an operation goes perfectly, I can praise the surgeon's skill while still thanking God.

 Again then as above, what tangible reason is there to imagine a deity did anything?

Silas Vane Wrote:
Why can't human effort receive its proper credit while God also receives thanks?

Well perhaps as far as I can see anyway, it is because human involvement is tangible it is objectively verifiable, the thanks is demonstrably deserved, like the culpability, I see no reason beyond a bare claim why a deity is being thanked at all. I mean should we thank Zeus or Apollo, if not why not, since I see no less evidence they were incvolved?