That's rather arrogant, Dr. SageBrush. Again, this is like political threads that go private - at least one POV is declared stupid and there is a fine line between that and implying the people believing it is stupid. I've got something more tangible than Pascal's Wager for you to deny coming up soon.
It better be before the world blinks out of existence in December, or I might miss it. I do not want to be perceived as arrogant for pointing out that delusions are a private matter in the best of cases.
This is more than a statement such as Pascal's Wager, but an actual account of a near-death experience. A. J. Ayer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This might be the most amazing example of denial I have ever read.
Chuck, err ... is that supposed to be a logical argument for the existence of god ? Or an argument to sway someone on the fence which way it is favorable to lean ? I'll take Pascal
^ you spent an hour to make a reply to that post. I wish AJ Ayers near-death experience was taped, just like Richard Dawkins plans when he dies > CBC.ca | Tapestry | Richard Dawkins
Well, since I plan to party with 70 virgins when I exit, I *could* videotape the episode, but it may not be fit for PC consumption. An hour may have passed between our posts, but you are jumping to conclusions what I did during that hour. Bad habit ?
I have no problem with Pascal's Gambit. I have no problem constraining it to a simple either/or decision because I'm not blinded by my intolerance of a POV.
I'm not really interested in 70 virgins. I'd much rather spend eternity with five or six that really know what they're doing.
As usual, an interesting thread by Daniel. As for me since I'm Japanese its hard for me to believe the ruler of the world is a god from the middle east born to Jewish parents. Look at it this way. If someone said to you the ruler of the world is a god from Japan and his descendent is the current Emperor, would you believe in that. You would laugh your head off. Therein lies the problem. Religion is in the minds of the believer and many have great ideas and philosophies. Unfortunately, religion is the cause of most wars. Fueled by ambition and greed some followers try aggressively to invade and conquer others. Religion should be a personal thing and what someone else believes in is no one else' business. If you want to worship please go to your church, mosque or temple but please don't tell me to join you. If I think its good enough, I will be there. As for non-aggressive religion, try Buddhism and Shinto. No its not my religion. Therefore I believe in many gods, especially Goddesses. I can go anywhere in my town and worship Goddesses, even ones that appear in my local watering hole and they're living and breathing and I can talk to them. Now that's my church and place of worship.
Wow. What a discussion! I thought I had it bad trying to convince some of my family that God is God not Warren Jeff's.
So people that don't believe in or share your POV should just shut up? Is there a corollary example for those that are atheist? How about AGW'ers. Drill Baby Drill'ers Keynesian Economics advocates Weather? The list is endless and I know daniel is going to harp on me if I don't cover every possibility but I think you have the idea. :thumb:
There are many people who know more about religion than I do. There are many people who know less about religion than I do. Some of both groups are atheists, and some of both groups are believers. Sometimes, an outsider understands a thing better than the insiders do. I rag on religion because all my life religion has been ragging on me and others, forcing racism, homophobia, and intolerance on the body politic. NDEs are an interesting phenomenon. Odd things happen in the brain, causing a wide variety of hallucinations when it comes close to shutting down. The mind then interprets these in ways it can make sense of. For example, a Buddhist will never "see" the Christian god in an NDE. You will "see" what you expect to see. The mistake is to assume that there's something "real" in the NDE. We can learn something about the brain from NDEs, but we cannot infer anything about whether or not there's a god or an afterlife, no matter how convincing the experience may be to the person who had it. And we cannot discount simple fraud in any given case. Whether by the person claiming to have had the NDE, or by the person reporting that someone else supposedly had one.
I suppose a delusion can be reframed as a POV, but most POVs are not delusions. They are *opinions* that can lead to informative discussion, and argued on their logical merits. A call to discuss AGW in the enviro sub-form might appeal to a quorum of members here, but where to put religious delusions ? Maybe the Volt sub-forum
I don't think your lack of belief is a delusion Sage, I think it's real and a very handy excuse to troll.
