Lots of people do the following:
- They believe false things in order to manipulate their feelings.
- e.g. they are worried about something related to a family member. they think about the possible outcomes. then they choose the best case scenario as the thing that's going to happen. then, when they find out that the best case scenario is not going to happen, they are crushed (extreme negative emotion).
- Imagine someone who believes in god because (according to him) it makes him feel good. He knows about the placebo effect and says, "so what? let's say it is because of placebo effect. It works! I feel better. So I'm fine with it" No it doesn't work. Your feeling is temporary. When you are finally faced with the truth that you're avoiding, you will feel horrible because your life sucks ass.
- Imagine being in a car that is almost out of gas and you're concerned that you might run out before reaching a gas station. And then you pray. For what? Whether or not you have enough gas to reach the next gas station is a fact that's already true. Are you asking god to add gas to your tank? Are you asking god to put a new gas station within your reach? I think they pray as a way to hope for the best case scenario. They are believing false things in order to manipulate their feelings.
- Imagine having a lottery ticket where the lotto numbers have already been reported. Your ticket is either a winner or a loser. You just don't know yet because you haven't checked the ticket against the winning numbers. And then you pray. Why? Are you asking god to change your ticket numbers? Are you asking god to change the winning numbers? I think they pray as a way to hope for the best case scenario. They are believing false things in order to manipulate their feelings.
Just to play the devil's advocate:
ReplyDelete- Beliefs are powerful because they change your feelings. This can be useful - especially when the beliefs are based in reality.
- A belief in God could be proven false, but you could change your belief in what God really is. I personally have a few options on the table for what God is. I don't believe in any of them completely. But I also provide some room for them to be true.
- Regarding being in a car which will run out of gas: perhaps God tells you to keep your RPMs low and avoid using the brakes as much as possible in order to get the most out of your fuel. ;)
Now to not be the devil's advocate:
It is helpful to see the evidence and adjust your beliefs accordingly. The evidence suggests to me that we must put in the work. Belief in magic may feel good in the moment but won't last forever. I am very cautious of immediate gratification.
I don't think evidence suggests anything, ever. I think that's an epistemology mistake. Are you aware of it?
ReplyDeleteIt could be that you were speaking loosely.
I'm not sure what you mean. I am aware of the three blind men and the elephant whereby people can make observations about a thing from different perspectives and arrive at different conclusions.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
And I am aware of people seeing something that isn't real for one reason or another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion
But if I pray for my nephew to live and he dies then that is a kind of evidence which is relevant. It suggests that there are at least some types of prayers which simply will not work the way you want them to work. The event which was my nephew's death definitely changed my worldview and my hopes. This event is front of mind for me when I am talking about God, prayer, belief, magic, and/or miracles. I allowed room in my worldview for this kind of miracle to happen and I only changed my worldview when my prayer did not work.
Many people believe the idea of miracle and I chose not to disregard it completely. But people don't actually test their beliefs. If you believe that God is omniscient and omnipotent then you can play with that belief to the point that when you ask God for a favor God will deny your request thus proving that you as an individual are not deserving, your request was not good, God was not omniscient, God was not omnipotent, God is not real, or some combination of those options. You discover that God is either not able to do what you ask or God is either not worthy of your energy.
I do realize I am prone to overreaching. And praying for a miracle can be viewed as overreaching. Or perhaps overreaching is always some kind of prayer for a miracle. The lesson I took from the event (or the evidence) is that we must put in the work. This lesson is related to overreaching in general.
Did I need to overreach prior to learning from my mistake? I intentionally overreached because I did not want to ignore the possibility of an omniscient and omnipotent God that is deserving of my attention.
what i meant is this:
Deletefor any given piece of evidence, there are an infinite number of possible theories that are compatible with it. this means that a piece of evidence can never select 1 theory from many, or in other words, evidence never suggests *a* theory. Elliot talks about this a lot. It comes up a lot during discussions about induction.
That makes sense. But evidence can be used to disprove a theory.
DeleteI'm not sure why you said "but". "but" implies that you're saying something that contradicts or contrasts against something I said. What did I say that you think you're contradicting or contrasting against? As far as I can tell, I said nothing like that.
ReplyDeleteYour position on whether or not evidence can be used to disprove a theory isn't clearly stated. Your position on the value of evidence isn't stated. You are not saying what evidence does. You are saying what it does not do. My use of the word "but" is an attempt to point at what evidence does and its value.
Delete