Star of Bethlehem

[Stranger]

Or maybe its just that most old science people are fixated with scientism and are unable to perceive what lies beyond the material.

It's got nothing to do with "old science people" or scientism. Science is a methodology, you can't rip up the central part of the method just because it doesn't support your favourite superstitions. If you throw out the basis of the method (testability and falsifiability), then you no longer have science.

It seems to be a favourite theme of yours to pretend (and it is a pretence, even if it's largely for your own 'benefit') that science is moving in 'your' direction and that people who disagree are "old school". It may make you feel better to believe that but it really isn't the case.

[ippy]

Or maybe its just that most old science people are fixated with scientism and are unable to perceive what lies beyond the material.

You still haven't given us the privilege of seeing your charming mug shot...that's not fair.     I agree I am not good looking, but my photo is nevertheless available at my blog site.   

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/

I wish you'd forget all of that old discredited, unsupported woo nonsense Sriram and come around to the tried and tested agelessly well proven methodology of science.

I was sent to Sunday school as a youngster and managed to avoid the indoctrinational side of it, most likely by luck alone and I suppose as with everything else in terms of psychology all of it's results and assessments are based on percentages.

I remember at age about twelve years thinking to myself this religion stuff is a load of old bollocks, it's nothing much more than having a belief in father christmas but there, it still surprises me how many gullible people these various beliefs manage to draw in hook line and sinker, such a shame and pointless waste of time.

Be honest Sriram it wouldn't make the slightest difference to you or your life if you managed to dump the woo stuff.

Regards, ippy.

By the way it wouldn't be fair of me to post a mugshot.

[Sriram]

"I remember at age about twelve years thinking to myself this religion stuff is a load of old bollocks,"


There you go. 12 years again! It keeps coming up  again and again...11 to 14 years when someone became an unbeliever or irreverent or skeptical. 

Adolescence.....that is the stage when this sort of shift happens. In some people it goes away subsequently and a more balance view prevails. In some people (due to cultural pressures) the adolescent attitude continues to remain.

In a more balanced cultural environment, it could lead to maturity and balance instead of remaining in habitual skepticism and cynicism.

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/three-stages/

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Or maybe its just that most old science people are fixated with scientism and are unable to perceive what lies beyond the material.

Your problem isn’t “old science people”, nor scientism – it’s that you have no means to show that there’s such a thing as “beyond the material” at all. You can claim it. You can assert it. You can speculate about it all you like. What you can’t do though absent a method of any sort to investigate it is to distinguish it from just guessing.   

[Stranger]

"I remember at age about twelve years thinking to myself this religion stuff is a load of old bollocks,"


There you go. 12 years again! It keeps coming up  again and again...11 to 14 years when someone became an unbeliever or irreverent or skeptical. 

Adolescence.....that is the stage when this sort of shift happens. In some people it goes away subsequently and a more balance view prevails. In some people (due to cultural pressures) the adolescent attitude continues to remain.

In a more balanced cultural environment, it could lead to maturity and balance instead of remaining in habitual skepticism and cynicism.

It really is rather amusing that you endlessly substitute pomposity for reasoning. I could equally well say that in a more balanced cultural environment it could lead to maturity and balance instead of remaining in habitual sloppy thinking and superstition. I could say that it is clinging to the comfort blankets of religion and so called 'spiritual phenomena' that is the adolescent attitude.

Of course, it would carry just as little weight as your claims, which is why it is better to rely on rationality and objective evidence.

[ProfessorDavey]

"I remember at age about twelve years thinking to myself this religion stuff is a load of old bollocks,"


There you go. 12 years again! It keeps coming up  again and again...11 to 14 years when someone became an unbeliever or irreverent or skeptical. 

Adolescence.....that is the stage when this sort of shift happens. In some people it goes away subsequently and a more balance view prevails. In some people (due to cultural pressures) the adolescent attitude continues to remain.

In a more balanced cultural environment, it could lead to maturity and balance instead of remaining in habitual skepticism and cynicism.

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/three-stages/

Well in my case it was the opposite.

Having been brought up in a household which wasn't really religious (although wider family were) in my late teens I really wanted to believe, even thought I did. This was in part because I knew a number of people at university who were religious and I guess wanted to be part of the crowd, as it were. When I was nearly 23 I came to realise that I didn't believe in god and if I am honest with myself, never did. Nothing in more than 30 years since then has changed that position.

But in a broader sense I think it is correct that in the teenage years (or thereabouts) people often rebel against their upbringing, but also it is not uncommon for people to hold back into their upbringing later. I've made this point in relation to both Vlad and Gabriella but been accused of being condescending. Perhaps you should make your point to them too.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NTtS,

It really is rather amusing that you endlessly substitute pomposity for reasoning. I could equally well say that in a more balanced cultural environment it could lead to maturity and balance instead of remaining in habitual sloppy thinking and superstition. I could say that it is clinging to the comfort blankets of religion and so called 'spiritual phenomena' that is the adolescent attitude.

Of course, it would carry just as little weight as your claims, which is why it is better to rely on rationality and objective evidence.

Sriram is the Wylie E. Coyote of this mb. You’ll remember I’m sure the Roadrunner cartoons where Wylie would charge off the cliff, and only when he stopped running and looked down would he realise he had no support and plummet to the ground far below. So certain is Sriram that he’s right though that he’ll never stop running and look down, presumably for fear of the consequence if he did. Problem is though, just like Wylie he’s entirely unsupported only in his case he’s unsupported by reason or evidence.

Of course he could instead just set out the method he would propose to investigate and verify his various claims and assertions, but his only MO just now seems to be to criticise science for something it doesn’t claim to be in any case, and to rely on the ad hominem to dismiss those who don’t just agree with him. Odd.   

[ProfessorDavey]

Adolescence.....that is the stage when this sort of shift happens. In some people it goes away subsequently and a more balance view prevails. In some people (due to cultural pressures) the adolescent attitude continues to remain.

That is biased in the extreme - so effectively you are saying that if people fold back into religion then they are taking a balanced view - if not this is due to cultural pressures.

[ippy]

"I remember at age about twelve years thinking to myself this religion stuff is a load of old bollocks,"


There you go. 12 years again! It keeps coming up  again and again...11 to 14 years when someone became an unbeliever or irreverent or skeptical. 

Adolescence.....that is the stage when this sort of shift happens. In some people it goes away subsequently and a more balance view prevails. In some people (due to cultural pressures) the adolescent attitude continues to remain.

In a more balanced cultural environment, it could lead to maturity and balance instead of remaining in habitual skepticism and cynicism.

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/three-stages/

I can only agree with the following five posts since this last one of yours Sriram, I can't better any one of them.

The only thing I'll add is is it's more likely that the strength of indoctrination into these silly superstitional beliefs likely first shows at adolescence, quiet a few manage to escape these gradually ever failing beliefs completely, thank goodness.

Regards, ippy.

[Robbie]

Compliments of the season to everyone, hope you all enjoy festivities however limited. I've finished work now until next Tuesday & then only going in for a couple of hours. It will be nice to relax. Let's not worry about next year and enjoy the moment.

Love to all.

[Sriram]

Merry Christmas Robbie...and everyone. 

[SteveH]

"I remember at age about twelve years thinking to myself this religion stuff is a load of old bollocks,"


There you go. 12 years again! It keeps coming up  again and again...11 to 14 years when someone became an unbeliever or irreverent or skeptical. 

Adolescence.....that is the stage when this sort of shift happens. In some people it goes away subsequently and a more balance view prevails. In some people (due to cultural pressures) the adolescent attitude continues to remain.

In a more balanced cultural environment, it could lead to maturity and balance instead of remaining in habitual skepticism and cynicism.

11 or 12 is about the age most people start thinking for themselves. For some, it will lead to a rejection of the religion they were brought up in, or a belief in a different form of that religion; some, brought up as non-believers, will be attracted to a religion. I was about 12 when I was briefly converted to evangelicalism by Billy Graham, having been brought up as a mildly liberal Methodist. That didn't last, and neither did the atheism I adopted a few years later. I ended up back with liberal Christianity, but thought about, not just accepted because it was my parents' belief. It's normal for reasonably intelligent kids to try on a few beliefs and non-beliefs, political as well as religious, before they find one that fits. The great majority of religious conversions happen in the teens.
Pleased to note, in Sriram's post quoted above, that Microsoft underlines "skepticism" in red, as a mis-spelling!

[ProfessorDavey]

11 or 12 is about the age most people start thinking for themselves. For some, it will lead to a rejection of the religion they were brought up in, or a belief in a different form of that religion; some, brought up as non-believers, will be attracted to a religion. I was about 12 when I was briefly converted to evangelicalism by Billy Graham, having been brought up as a mildly liberal Methodist. That didn't last, and neither did the atheism I adopted a few years later. I ended up back with liberal Christianity, but thought about, not just accepted because it was my parents' belief. It's normal for reasonably intelligent kids to try on a few beliefs and non-beliefs, political as well as religious, before they find one that fits. The great majority of religious conversions happen in the teens.

A couple of points.

First there is a kind of 'dancing on the head of a pin' about describing 'conversion' from one form of christianity to another form of christianity. And there is certainly no equivalence with genuinely shifting from a religious/theist position to an atheist one (or vice versa). The former is a bit like claiming that you used to be a death metal fan and now you are a speed metal fan - the latter being someone who used to hate music but now loves it.

Secondly - again you appear to suggest some kind of equivalence in terms of likelihood between 'conversion' from a religious upbringing to being non-religious as an adult and the reverse - from a non-religious upbringing to being religious as an adult.

The former is very common - some 50% of people brought up in a religious household in the UK become non religious as adults. The latter is exceptionally rare, with just 3% of people brought up in a non religious household becoming religious as adults.

What this suggests is that being religious is a learned behaviour - you will only be religious as an adult if you were brought up to be religious. By contrast being non religious isn't learned behaviour - sure virtually everyone brought up non religious (if you think that is learning to be non religious, not sure it is) will be non religious as adults. But there are swathes of people brought up as religious who choose to be non religious as adults - there is no non-religious learned behaviour in childhood.

[ippy]

A couple of points.

First there is a kind of 'dancing on the head of a pin' about describing 'conversion' from one form of christianity to another form of christianity. And there is certainly no equivalence with genuinely shifting from a religious/theist position to an atheist one (or vice versa). The former is a bit like claiming that you used to be a death metal fan and now you are a speed metal fan - the latter being someone who used to hate music but now loves it.

Secondly - again you appear to suggest some kind of equivalence in terms of likelihood between 'conversion' from a religious upbringing to being non-religious as an adult and the reverse - from a non-religious upbringing to being religious as an adult.

The former is very common - some 50% of people brought up in a religious household in the UK become non religious as adults. The latter is exceptionally rare, with just 3% of people brought up in a non religious household becoming religious as adults.

What this suggests is that being religious is a learned behaviour - you will only be religious as an adult if you were brought up to be religious. By contrast being non religious isn't learned behaviour - sure virtually everyone brought up non religious (if you think that is learning to be non religious, not sure it is) will be non religious as adults. But there are swathes of people brought up as religious who choose to be non religious as adults - there is no non-religious learned behaviour in childhood.

Like it Proff, can't see anywhere I would even slightly disagree with this post of yours.

I'll only add that the C of E even admits to the fact it's the early pre seven year old children are its most successful recruiting grounds, small wonder they hang on to their infant schools like grim death, funnily enough the majority of C of E run schools just happen to be infant schools, I wonder why?

Hope your Christmas's a good un Proff, ippy.

[Sriram]

A couple of points.

First there is a kind of 'dancing on the head of a pin' about describing 'conversion' from one form of christianity to another form of christianity. And there is certainly no equivalence with genuinely shifting from a religious/theist position to an atheist one (or vice versa). The former is a bit like claiming that you used to be a death metal fan and now you are a speed metal fan - the latter being someone who used to hate music but now loves it.

Secondly - again you appear to suggest some kind of equivalence in terms of likelihood between 'conversion' from a religious upbringing to being non-religious as an adult and the reverse - from a non-religious upbringing to being religious as an adult.

The former is very common - some 50% of people brought up in a religious household in the UK become non religious as adults. The latter is exceptionally rare, with just 3% of people brought up in a non religious household becoming religious as adults.

What this suggests is that being religious is a learned behaviour - you will only be religious as an adult if you were brought up to be religious. By contrast being non religious isn't learned behaviour - sure virtually everyone brought up non religious (if you think that is learning to be non religious, not sure it is) will be non religious as adults. But there are swathes of people brought up as religious who choose to be non religious as adults - there is no non-religious learned behaviour in childhood.

We move from the child stage (believing, imitating, obeying)  to the adolescent stage (irreverent, skeptical).   That is why we move from a believing state to a nonbelieving state.....and rarely the other way around. After that we are meant to move to a mature stage when we are neither habitual believers nor habitual nonbelievers.

But depending on ones upbringing and cultural environment, some people continue to remain in the child stage all their lives and some others continue to remain in the adolescent stage all their lives. 

Both believing and nonbelieving become habits and mindsets that become difficult to change after a period of time. Each of these groups believes very firmly that they hold the 'correct' position on reality....whereas reality could be neither or could be an integrated version of both.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

We move from the child stage (believing, imitating, obeying)  to the adolescent stage (irreverent, skeptical).   That is why we move from a believing state to a nonbelieving state.....and rarely the other way around. After that we are meant to move to a mature stage when we are neither habitual believers nor habitual nonbelievers.

But depending on ones upbringing and cultural environment, some people continue to remain in the child stage all their lives and some others continue to remain in the adolescent stage all their lives.

Both believing and nonbelieving become habits and mindsets that become difficult to change after a period of time. Each of these groups believes very firmly that they hold the 'correct' position on reality....whereas reality could be neither or could be an integrated version of both.

Like children believe in the Tooth Fairy, storks delivering babies etc, then as adolescents they realise that there are more rational explanations, then only the special few like you decide that reality could be an “integrated version” of these alternate ideas? 

Here’s another explanation for you: “the child stage (believing, imitating, obeying)” is as far as you've got, and your adolescent stage (rationalism) has yet to arrive. What do you think? 

[ippy]

We move from the child stage (believing, imitating, obeying)  to the adolescent stage (irreverent, skeptical).   That is why we move from a believing state to a nonbelieving state.....and rarely the other way around. After that we are meant to move to a mature stage when we are neither habitual believers nor habitual nonbelievers.

But depending on ones upbringing and cultural environment, some people continue to remain in the child stage all their lives and some others continue to remain in the adolescent stage all their lives. 

Both believing and nonbelieving become habits and mindsets that become difficult to change after a period of time. Each of these groups believes very firmly that they hold the 'correct' position on reality....whereas reality could be neither or could be an integrated version of both.

Looks like you're not that keen on actual evidence where Proff D refers to here in the UK the 50% of children brought up within religious households become non-religious as adults, as opposed to when the children brought up in non-religious households only 3% take up religion as adults.

The Proff presented evidence for his outlook, whereas you seem to have some sort of preference for assertions Sriram?

Back to the, paying money, for a caged bird to pick a card telling your fortune seems to me to be your preferred form of logic, or anything else of a similar nature.

ippy.
 

[SteveH]

A couple of points.

First there is a kind of 'dancing on the head of a pin' about describing 'conversion' from one form of christianity to another form of christianity. And there is certainly no equivalence with genuinely shifting from a religious/theist position to an atheist one (or vice versa). The former is a bit like claiming that you used to be a death metal fan and now you are a speed metal fan - the latter being someone who used to hate music but now loves it.

Secondly - again you appear to suggest some kind of equivalence in terms of likelihood between 'conversion' from a religious upbringing to being non-religious as an adult and the reverse - from a non-religious upbringing to being religious as an adult.

The former is very common - some 50% of people brought up in a religious household in the UK become non religious as adults. The latter is exceptionally rare, with just 3% of people brought up in a non religious household becoming religious as adults.

What this suggests is that being religious is a learned behaviour - you will only be religious as an adult if you were brought up to be religious. By contrast being non religious isn't learned behaviour - sure virtually everyone brought up non religious (if you think that is learning to be non religious, not sure it is) will be non religious as adults. But there are swathes of people brought up as religious who choose to be non religious as adults - there is no non-religious learned behaviour in childhood.

What a load of ballcocks. My post was pretty uncontroversial, but you found things to disagree about just for the sake of being disagreeable. Religion learned behaviour, indeed! If it was it'd've died out long ago. Humans obviously have a religious capacity and need. That says nothing at all about whether any religion is true in the straightforward sense, but any of them can be true subjectively. We can practise our chosen religion without worrying about its objective truth.

[ProfessorDavey]

What a load of ballcocks. My post was pretty uncontroversial, but you found things to disagree about just for the sake of being disagreeable. Religion learned behaviour, indeed! If it was it'd've died out long ago. Humans obviously have a religious capacity and need. That says nothing at all about whether any religion is true in the straightforward sense, but any of them can be true subjectively. We can practise our chosen religion without worrying about its objective truth.

And a Merry Christmas to you too Steve.

I never said your post was controversial; I merely pointed out that the notion that suggesting that some people are brought up religious and then become non-religious while others are brought up non-religious and then religious as being somehow equivalent and therefore happening as often as each other is simply not true.

And yes being specifically religious (i.e a christian, or jewish, or hindu etc) is clearly learned behaviour. Can you provide any evidence that anyone has independently become a christian (or any other specific religious) without learning about it from other people - nope you can't because it has never happened. No-one has ever found a tribe that had never previously had contact with christians and discovered they were also christian, which would be possible is being christian wasn't learned behaviour, or was transmitted from god rather than via people. Never happens.

And religions understand this very well. As far as I'm aware all mainstream religions have well defined ceremonies and customs to induct children into that religion, involving teaching them to be religious. Why - because they are, quite rightly, aware that if children do not learn to be religious at an early age they are very, very unlikely to become so as adults. Give the the child at 7, and all that. And perhaps there have been religions that didn't instruct their children into that religion - guess what they'd have died out. All the successful ones make sure that children are instructed into that religion. Learned behaviour.

But being non religious isn't learned behaviour as there are countless non religious people who were not taught to be non religious as children - rather they were taught to be religious in religious households, but 50% of those children turn their backs on religion as adults.