Believers VS Non-belivers

[edwardcullensotherwoman]

Why is it that if someone believes in something, they will talk about it as exactly that - something they believe in - and not portray it as absolute fact; yet if someone doesn't believe in something, they will say this as an absolute fact and ridicule those who believe?

It's almost as if those who don't believe (in whatever the subject: angels, God, reincarnation) consider themselves superior to those who do, and view those who do as stupid for doing so.

Surely everyone's beliefs are their own belief and opinion - nothing "woo" can be either proven or disproven, so therefore nobody is right or wrong.

It just seems that every thread that starts "Do you believe" on this board ends up in a bun fight with believes defending themselves against non-believers who tell them they're being ridiculous. The clue is in the title of the board - if you don't believe in anything that's likely to be discussed under that heading, just avoid the board!

I believe they were real for them Holmes.

Holmes, this kind of thinking,

io9.com/5975778/scientific-evidence-that-you-probably-dont-have-free-will

capsium - Can't you really answer a simple question?

You never ask me simple questions, Cote.

Jumping into the thread - I'm not actually convinced we do have free will, but it feels as though we do, and so I choose to act as though I have - ie that I am responsible for my actions (and yes I know there's a contradiction in there )

capsicum - cote did ask a simple question - but coming up with a simple answer to it could be hard.

Real for them? What does that actually mean? That their gods did exist but winked out of existence when nobody believed in them any more? Or does it nean 'existed as ideas in the heads of primitive peopke, but didn't properly exist like my god'?

Something is either real or it's not. People can believe in it or not believe in it, but that does not change the facts.

In my opinion, the 'it was true for them' claim is just a convenient modern loophole to avoid the uncomfortable but logical necessity of condemning people of all other religions as wrong and going to hell.

True for them means I believe spiritual belief(s) can manifest physically. They can alter perceptions. Set patterns of thought and ways of thinking can alter brain physiology which can in turn alter people's perceptions and can be passed onto new generations. The altered brain physiology is the physical manifestation.

"Set patterns of thought and ways of thinking can alter brain physiology which can in turn alter people's perceptions and can be passed onto new generations"

I am pretty sure this isn't true...................

capsium - Do you have any evidence to back up that "alters brain physiology" stuff?

Yes but passing on beliefs is not the same thing as an actual real deity being summoned into existence. A deity real enough to - for example - create human life or have power over the seasons or strike infidels dead or the many other things that gods are alleged to have done would have to be a damn sight more real than just a perception in people's heads, however many generations had believed in them.

And anyway, I'm pretty sure that the method by which religions are passed down through the generations has nothing to do with belief altering brain patterns (or whatever) and everything to do with teaching your kids to believe in the same nonsense.

Incidentally, I am quite sure that belief, like meditation, can indeed influence the behaviour and development of a person's brain. I think that is pretty widely accepted by psychologists. What it can't do is magically summon actual deities into existence and then preserve them in the brains of future generations.

'Something is either real or it's not.'

Really? So are electrons and photons 'really' particles or waves? What 'really' happened in the first nanoseconds after the big bang?

I think that there are a lot of people who know a little about philosophy and science who are very dismissive of other people's beliefs. I find that to be an incredibly arrogant attitude. Amongst scientists, just like everyone else, there are a variety of different beliefs about the big questions of faith. It is easy enough to google religious scientists to find a long list of brilliant minds (Einstein amongst them) who believed in some form of god. Did these people really just not understand these questions? Or did they just form differently (and equally reasonable) conclusions based on the evidence. I find the Judaeo-Christian God to be far too much like us to be credible. I expect that, were some consciousness out there, we would have as much chance of understanding it as an ant would of understanding human society. Personally, I am an agnostic on the big questions. I accept that I really don't have a clue.

As for what people describe as 'woo', though, frequently it can be disproved. For example, homeopathy does not work. I can state this as a fact through the results of experiments coupled with my knowledge of science.

In fact I'm beginning to think, capsium that the problem here is that we have a different definition of 'real' or 'exist'.

If something only exists in your mind/imagination, then it is not real. Your belief does not make it real. A child may believe in the monster under his bed. To say that means it is 'real to him' is disingenuous. We know it is not real, however much he believes in it. And he will of course eventually realise it is not real.

Hak and Cote

Danial Everett's work with the Pirahã people shows just how much cultural beliefs can affect language. In their culture anything outside their immediate present experience is considered Taboo, they refer to anything outside immediate experience to have gone 'out of existence. This has affected their language to such an extent they have no recursion, significant because linguists have thought grammar to be the defining feature of language and humanity - animals have complex communication systems without grammar. Cultural beliefs have also affected the Pirahã's ability to appreciate numbers.

Brain physiologists have mapped differences in brain development for people with differing language capabilities.

This article also shows just how much culture affects perceptions,

www.psmag.com/magazines/magazine-feature-story-magazines/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/

If your read around the subject of brain plasticity and epigenetics this also throws up some interesting ideas about how culture and beliefs can affect us physically.

Holmes

I think that is pretty widely accepted by psychologists. What it can't do is magically summon actual deities into existence and then preserve them in the brains of future generations.

This is where epigenetics is interesting...

Also when talking of spiritual entities, they don't exists in the physical sense, they are non corporal. How I believe spirits manifest physically is they act an agent which can alter the physical state of living matter.

This is interesting here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_epigenetics

and here:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361923013001172

and here:

www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v7/n1/full/nrn1832.html

But surely Jesus was fully corporeal, but he was god. And people of other religions in the past believed in real bodily appearances of their gods on earth. So how could an actual physical manifestation of a god work in the 'it was real for them' theory? And a physically non-existent god created matter, or indeed human beings, out of nothing? I actually think I find the tooth fairy marginally more believable than this...

Just looked at your links. Yes - the brain does lots of amazing stuff. Things we do and experience create new pathways in our brains - yes, I expect so. I fail to see how this means that god exists.

All this boils down to the fact that god is nothing more than an idea in your head. That is not the same as god existing as an independent force/being. Existing only in your head = made up.

That is what is special about Jesus when he lived as a man. He was the physical manifestation of God, the Word made flesh.

John 1:1
King James Version (KJV)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:14
King James Version (KJV)
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Not only in my head Holmes lots of other people's like me too...and in our words, what we communicate. Jesus talked of His words being spirit and life.

'Something is either real or it's not.'

Really? So are electrons and photons 'really' particles or waves? What 'really' happened in the first nanoseconds after the big bang?

Electrons and photons are really electrons and photons - but they have behaviours which we can model as waves or particles. As to the first nanoseconds aftert the BB - no idea; maybe humankind will never know but that has no bearing whatever on the fact that something really did happen.

capsicum - your belief that Jesus was the manifestation of God doesn't make it real. The fact that a book says so doesn't make it real. I used to be a Christian BTW - Jesus used to be 'real' for me too.

Errol Your disbelief does not stop something or someone from being real either...