Religions have succeeded

[ProfessorDavey]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. I don't think i've read such an extreme and ridiculous and totally inaccurate assumption of victimhood in my life.

It actually isn't about victimhood at all, rather an understanding about society and how it perceived and recognised different groups.

So in the 1950s the broad societal view was that although it was recognised that gay people existed society, in effect, pretended they didn't exist - so gay people weren't really able to, certainly not encouraged to, make themselves visible within society. And also society felt that children needed to be 'protected' so schools simply didn't acknowledge the existence of gay people, certainly didn't encourage those children who were gay to express themselves.

Sounds rather like my 1970s upbringing with regard to atheists and atheism - while I'm sure many people recognised that society included people who did not believe in god, those people were invisible and the societal default was that firstly there was a god and secondly that this god was the christian god. And to such an extent that you could grow up through the late 60s and early 70s, attending a non faith school and not even be aware that atheists and atheism even existed.

[ProfessorDavey]

Religious people might talk about their faith motivating them if asked by the media - 'what motivated you' is a standard media question.

Once again why is the motivation of people seemingly only important if they are religious.

Now I'd actually argue that the motivations of people are varied and complex. Is the christian who volunteers for a shift in the McMillan Cancer shop being motivated by his/her faith or because someone close to them died of cancer and that particular charity was really helpful so they wanted to 'give back'. Or is the muslim who volunteers to help clean up a local pond motivated by his/her faith or because they are upset by the rubbish clogging the water and also enjoy doing a bit of work outdoors and the camaraderie of their fellow volunteers.

I suspect the reality is that for most people the motivation is simply that they want to help and think it is the right thing to do - and that will apply to religious and non religious people alike. In fact if the only motivation for wanting to help and to do the right thing is a religious belief rather than a general sense of empathy and community mindedness, then I would find that worrying.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

It's still a claim of objective fact (a god who makes house calls) as opposed to a statement of subjective preference. The “about the universe” part is irrelevant for this purpose.   

A. I grew up in a coffee drinking household. I now prefer coffee to tea.

B. I grew up in a dragonist household. There’s a noise coming from my garage – therefore there’s a dragon in my garage.

Can you see the qualitative difference between these statements?

Are you claiming that a God who is in people's consciousness is making house calls and that there is no difference between your consciousness and your garage?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

If the supernatural is outside the natural world how could it be experienced inside the natural world? As you say, consciousness is in the universe - so presumably it cannot be supernatural. How then can the natural experience the supernatural? How could God (supernatural) be present and act within the universe (natural)? This is all much too clever for me.

We don't know whether there is a supernatural - there is no way to establish it. But if someone claims there is something outside the natural world, then it's anyone's guess how interaction occurs and what anyone means by 'presence'. They could mean some form of communication, an idea, an inspiration to make a change in your life? If thoughts are sensed internally by the person's consciousness how would we verify a thought or inspiration?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Once again why is the motivation of people seemingly only important if they are religious.

It isn't. Lots of people explain their motivation without mentioning religion. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13930976/captain-tom-raised-britains-spirit-nhs-walk/

Now I'd actually argue that the motivations of people are varied and complex. Is the christian who volunteers for a shift in the McMillan Cancer shop being motivated by his/her faith or because someone close to them died of cancer and that particular charity was really helpful so they wanted to 'give back'. Or is the muslim who volunteers to help clean up a local pond motivated by his/her faith or because they are upset by the rubbish clogging the water and also enjoy doing a bit of work outdoors and the comradely of their fellow volunteers.

I suspect the reality is that for most people the motivation is that they want to help and think it is the right thing to do - and that will apply to religious and non religious people alike. In fact if the only motivation for wanting to help and to do the right thing is a religious belief rather than a general sense of empathy and community mindedness, then I would find that worrying.

I would agree that people's motivations are varied and complex. Their interpretation of their religious faith may be a component but there would be other motivations too.

I've always made that point when people claim religion is the sole motivation for certain terrorist acts.

[ProfessorDavey]

It isn't.

Then why mention it - why single out the importance of religion in terms of motivation but not:

humanism
family
upbringing
life experiences (good and bad)
feeling of challenge
previous support from the organisation being helped

And countless other reasons that you've failed to mention - you only seem interested in religion.

[Bramble]

We don't know whether there is a supernatural - there is no way to establish it. But if someone claims there is something outside the natural world, then it's anyone's guess how interaction occurs and what anyone means by 'presence'. They could mean some form of communication, an idea, an inspiration to make a change in your life? If thoughts are sensed internally by the person's consciousness how would we verify a thought or inspiration?

Sorry. I had been under the impression you believed in God/supernatural and might therefore be able to make some sense of this. My mistake.

[ProfessorDavey]

Lots of people explain their motivation without mentioning religion. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13930976/captain-tom-raised-britains-spirit-nhs-walk/

Err - probably because they aren't religious and/or because religion isn't a motivating factor. What exactly is your point. I'm sure lots of people will explain their motivation without mentioning humanism - presumably including a big dollop of people who ... err ... aren't humanists.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

Are you claiming that a God who is in people's consciousness is making house calls and that there is no difference between your consciousness and your garage?

I don’t know what you mean by “a God who is in people's consciousness” (would that be an actual god or an imagined one?), but in any case I was just explaining to you the difference between environmentally determined/influenced feelings, preferences, tastes etc (about liking coffee over tea for example) and environmentally determined/influenced claims of objective fact (like there being a god for example).

That is, the analogy you attempted was a category error.   

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Then why mention it - why single out the importance of religion in terms of motivation but not:

humanism
family
upbringing
life experiences (good and bad)
feeling of challenge
previous support from the organisation being helped

And countless other reasons that you've failed to mention - you only seem interested in religion.

It was in response to a post where Vlad claimed people thought Christians were odd? I was pointing out that it wasn't that simple and that people may have multiple views of Christians, based on some Christians mentioning their faith as a motivating factor in their charitable behaviour. 

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Sorry. I had been under the impression you believed in God/supernatural and might therefore be able to make some sense of this. My mistake.

Why would you think I could make sense out of something for which there is no objective evidence?

What method would you use to evaluate any thoughts on the matter to see if they made sense to you? Given we are discussing the supernatural?

[ProfessorDavey]

I was pointing out that it wasn't that simple and that people may have multiple views of Christians, based on some Christians mentioning their faith as a motivating factor in their charitable behaviour.

As you might imagine I always like my arguments to be evidence based, rather than just hand waving - so here you go, evidence on the motivations for charitable behaviour in the UK - see p14

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/r/53/yougov_white_paper_what_motivates_charitable_giving_0619.pdf

So 'Giving to charity is part of my religious beliefs' ranks bottom of the seven statements of motivation - noting that responders can select as many motivational statements as they wish. And as I would have expected 'I believe in the cause' comes top by a mile.

So basically why bang on about the importance of religion as motivation for charitable behaviour when it comes way, way down the pecking order of motivations.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

I don’t know what you mean by “a God who is in people's consciousness” (would that be an actual god or an imagined one?),

I mean God is not a physical presence. Imagination is not the same as consciousness. What do you mean by imagined?   

but in any case I was just explaining to you the difference between environmentally determined/influenced feelings, preferences, tastes etc (about liking coffee over tea for example) and environmentally determined/influenced claims of objective fact (like there being a god for example).

That is, the analogy you attempted was a category error.

And I was explaining to you that anything the brain conjures up to make sense of what it has sensed or experienced would be based on prior information stored in the brain. This includes tastes, preferences, values, morals etc. all peddled to us by parents and organisations when we were young and impressionable. So why would you not expect any concept of god to be similarly based on prior experience / knowledge / information? What's the alternative?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

As you might imagine I always like my arguments to be evidence based, rather than just hand waving - so here you go, evidence on the motivations for charitable behaviour in the UK - see p14

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/r/53/yougov_white_paper_what_motivates_charitable_giving_0619.pdf

So 'Giving to charity is part of my religious beliefs' ranks bottom of the seven statements of motivation - noting that responders can select as many motivational statements as they wish. And as I would have expected 'I believe in the cause' comes top by a mile.

So basically why bang on about the importance of religion as motivation for charitable behaviour when it comes way, way down the pecking order of motivations.

What's your definition of banging on? I mentioned religious and non-religious motivation so if you think I'm banging on about religious motivation, that's just your interpretation based on your bias...again. Getting to be a bit of a habit for you.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

I mean God is not a physical presence. Imagination is not the same as consciousness. What do you mean by imagined?

I didn’t know whether you were describing a god that someone just dreamt up, or a god that is real. I still don’t know, but in any case it’s not particularly relevant to the point.     

And I was explaining to you that anything the brain conjures up to make sense of what it has sensed or experienced would be based on prior information stored in the brain. This includes tastes, preferences, values, morals etc. all peddled to us by parents and organisations when we were young and impressionable. So why would you not expect any concept of god to be similarly based on prior experience / knowledge / information? What's the alternative?

Not sure whether you’re being deliberately disingenuous here or you’re just not getting it. A subjective, imagined god may well be reified with characteristics “based on prior information stored in the brain”. An objectively real god on the other hand would bring something to the party – it would communicate something about itself that would shape the way it was perceived.

In any case, your analogy was a category error: preferring tea over coffee tells us something about you (ie about your subjective preference), but nothing about tea or coffee. Claims of objective facts on the other hand are all about their objects (in this case “god”). Both can be environmentally determined/influenced, but they are concerned with fundamentally different categories of knowledge.             

[ProfessorDavey]

What's your definition of banging on? I mentioned religious and non-religious motivation so if you think I'm banging on about religious motivation, that's just your interpretation based on your bias...again.

There you go - doing it again. You can't see beyond religious vs non religious - the very notion that you see things fundamentally in terms of religion vs not religion is clearly part of the issue here, particularly when I've demonstrated that religion is a very low level motivation for charitable behaviour in the UK.

Why not personal experience vs non personal experience, or humanism vs non humanism, or deprived childhood vs non deprived childhood etc etc. But no, it would appear that in your mind people sit in a box of religion vs non religion and your understanding of motivations seems to struggle to get beyond this I'm afraid VG.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It actually isn't about victimhood at all, rather an understanding about society and how it perceived and recognised different groups.

So in the 1950s the broad societal view was that although it was recognised that gay people existed society, in effect, pretended they didn't exist - so gay people weren't really able to, certainly not encouraged to, make themselves visible within society. And also society felt that children needed to be 'protected' so schools simply didn't acknowledge the existence of gay people, certainly didn't encourage those children who were gay to express themselves.

Sounds rather like my 1970s upbringing with regard to atheists and atheism - while I'm sure many people recognised that society included people who did not believe in god, those people were invisible and the societal default was that firstly there was a god and secondly that this god was the christian god. And to such an extent that you could grow up through the late 60s and early 70s, attending a non faith school and not even be aware that atheists and atheism even existed.

The analogy is not tremendous though Prof. In the fifties you could be arrested for being found homosexual. I don't believe that has been the case for at least a couple of centuries for atheists. Poor analogy I'd call it.

[Dicky Underpants]

What is a "massive conversion" anyway....as opposed to any other type of conversion? What is the criteria for adding the word "massive"? And why does it matter whether it's massive or just a normal-sized conversion? What's your point?

But this is common knowledge, at least in the accounts of Christianity. True, there are some who become gradually interested in a particular religion, begin to practise it, find they like it and eventually commit themselves to it entirely (I suppose that approach would be something akin to your experience with Islam). Perhaps the 'thunderbolt' conversion is more common in Christian 'fundamentalist' type groups. It was certainly a well-known phenomenon in my experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so much so that they have special safeguards concerning it. People who had recently had some lightning conversion experience were known to be so excited that they could not stop talking about it to everyone around. This could of course become a great irritation to anyone who had to listen to all this, but the main worry as far as the JWs were concerned was that the new recruit, in their naive enthusiasm, might be spreading 'false doctrine'. Accounts of this type of experience can be found everywhere - I seem to remember one in a film about the life and conversion of a certain American porn star*, whose name escapes me.
In the light of this, it seems obvious to me from Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience that it was definitely of the 'massive' kind. But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.

*As if hit by a thunderbolt, the name came to me: Bettie Page

[ProfessorDavey]

In the fifties you could be arrested for being found homosexual.

No you couldn't - being gay was not an offence in the 1950s, which is the equivalent of being atheist/atheism - it was certain types of homosexual acts that were unlawful and I think I'm right in thinking these laws only applied to male homosexuality.

And we should remember that blasphemy laws, which were often used to protect religions against criticism from atheists and atheist thought were repealed in the UK until 2008.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

I didn’t know whether you were describing a god that someone just dreamt up, or a god that is real. I still don’t know, but in any case it’s not particularly relevant to the point.

I couldn't understand your question. How would we establish if a supernatural entity is real?

Not sure whether you’re being deliberately disingenuous here or you’re just not getting it. A subjective, imagined god may well be reified with characteristics “based on prior information stored in the brain”. An objectively real god on the other hand would bring something to the party – it would communicate something about itself that would shape the way it was perceived.

In any case, your analogy was a category error: preferring tea over coffee tells us something about you (ie about your subjective preference), but nothing about tea or coffee. Claims of objective facts on the other hand are all about their objects (in this case “god”). Both can be environmentally determined/influenced, but they are concerned with fundamentally different categories of knowledge.             

I wasn't claiming objective fact as I have no method to establish any objective claims about the supernatural.

I'm getting it. Maybe you're not getting it. You made a point to Vlad in reply #882 that "the very god you think you "encountered" or some such as an adult just happened to be exactly the same god that these various organisations peddled to the young and impressionable you"

The point I made in response was that any discussion or sense of gods, whether they are objectively real or not, would have to be in terms based on prior information in the brain. Whatever the objectively real god brought to the party, the concept of the god forming in someone's brain - the person's thoughts - would be subjectively conceived based on past information stored in the brain. So whatever a person senses, I would expect that when they perceive that they sensed God, the thoughts in their brain would be based on their association with past information they have been exposed to. What's the alternative?

It's the same for how we conceive morals, values and our other subjective preferences such as tea and coffee - we link them to prior experience in our brains that was peddled to us when we were young and impressionable.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Dicky,

But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.

Yes – Vlad thinks he was “converted” by an objectively real god who only communicated to him what he’d been taught to believe already about “god”. That’s always the way though: no Amazonian tribesman has an “encounter” that gives him the hitherto unknown CV of the Christian god; no “Vlad” has an encounter that tells him all about a hitherto unknown Amazon animal spirit. Gods it seems feel the need to tell us only what we think we know about them already.

Does that mean that these gods/animal spirits aren’t real? Not necessarily, but it’s highly suggestive I think of people who have subjective “experiences” then simply reaching for explanations for them that just happen to be most proximate.     

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

There you go - doing it again. You can't see beyond religious vs non religious - the very notion that you see things fundamentally in terms of religion vs not religion is clearly part of the issue here, particularly when I've demonstrated that religion is a very low level motivation for charitable behaviour in the UK.

Why not personal experience vs non personal experience, or humanism vs non humanism, or deprived childhood vs non deprived childhood etc etc. But no, it would appear that in your mind people sit in a box of religion vs non religion and your understanding of motivations seems to struggle to get beyond this I'm afraid VG.

It would be ridiculous to include your list in every point I make if it's not relevant to the point I am making. That you expect me to include your list is just your bias - you seem exceptionally sensitive to any mention of religion and have an uncontrollable knee-jerk reaction. 

The sequence of events was that in #872  I responded to Vlad's #868 where he said  "I always thought christians were oddball". So my response was about religious odd-balls. But I also said "that Christianity seemed to be cited as the inspiration for some of the people who gave up considerable time and money to help charitable causes". Why on earth would I mention humanism and deprived childhoods in my response when I was referring to some people who cited Christianity as their inspiration for a charitable action they carried out?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But this is common knowledge, at least in the accounts of Christianity. True, there are some who become gradually interested in a particular religion, begin to practise it, find they like it and eventually commit themselves to it entirely (I suppose that approach would be something akin to your experience with Islam). Perhaps the 'thunderbolt' conversion is more common in Christian 'fundamentalist' type groups. It was certainly a well-known phenomenon in my experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so much so that they have special safeguards concerning it. People who had recently had some lightning conversion experience were known to be so excited that they could not stop talking about it to everyone around. This could of course become a great irritation to anyone who had to listen to all this, but the main worry as far as the JWs were concerned was that the new recruit, in their naive enthusiasm, might be spreading 'false doctrine'. Accounts of this type of experience can be found everywhere - I seem to remember one in a film about the life and conversion of a certain American porn star*, whose name escapes me.
In the light of this, it seems obvious to me from Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience that it was definitely of the 'massive' kind. But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.

*As if hit by a thunderbolt, the name came to me: Bettie Page,

Christianity is the dominant form of religion in the world however like all religions I suppose, it has nominal adherence of the Kind that peels away. That kind of religion is probably the dominant British religion you are talking about and In your's truly it had certainly peeled away and that form of religion was not what I 'got' at my conversion.

Davey and Hillside seem to suggest a 'dangerous' level of exposure to religion at which conversion is almost sure and also exaggerate my exposure so their methodology isn't that sound.

Let's look at things another way. Christianity ceased to be socially useful for the nominal christian and so people moved to the new path of least social resistance...A kind of agnostic apatheism.

Some took the Dawkins path of evangelical atheism.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

But this is common knowledge, at least in the accounts of Christianity. True, there are some who become gradually interested in a particular religion, begin to practise it, find they like it and eventually commit themselves to it entirely (I suppose that approach would be something akin to your experience with Islam). Perhaps the 'thunderbolt' conversion is more common in Christian 'fundamentalist' type groups. It was certainly a well-known phenomenon in my experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so much so that they have special safeguards concerning it. People who had recently had some lightning conversion experience were known to be so excited that they could not stop talking about it to everyone around. This could of course become a great irritation to anyone who had to listen to all this, but the main worry as far as the JWs were concerned was that the new recruit, in their naive enthusiasm, might be spreading 'false doctrine'. Accounts of this type of experience can be found everywhere - I seem to remember one in a film about the life and conversion of a certain American porn star*, whose name escapes me.
In the light of this, it seems obvious to me from Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience that it was definitely of the 'massive' kind. But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.

*As if hit by a thunderbolt, the name came to me: Bettie Page

I can't recall Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience other than the post I responded to, where it seemed more of a gradual experience. Vlad said he was a god-denier so it sounded like he had been thinking about it for a while before he converted. He said the presence he felt was in his consciousness and not in the sense of a physical presence. Not my idea of a massive conversion where I would expect at the very least some yelling of a few "Hallelujahs" but it seems we differ in our interpretation of the word "massive". 

ETA: I don't know how similar the flavour of Christianity he professes is to the one he was brought up with, but I don't think it's curious that there are some similar themes. He's not claiming to be a prophet or messiah with a whole new message. He just made sense of his experience in response to the information his brain had. I come from a country where lots of people converted from their religion to Christianity after Christian missionaries arrived and set up schools. They couldn't have done so if the missionaries and the surrounding environment from birth had not presented their brains with some information for the brain to work with to make sense of their experience and emotions. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

I couldn't understand your question. How would we establish if a supernatural entity is real?

I have no idea. As I’m not proposing a supernatural entity though that’s not my problem (though it is for a proponent of such a thing who wants her claim to be taken seriously).

I wasn't claiming objective fact as I have no method to establish any objective claims about the supernatural.

But Vlad is, which is what this about. He thinks an objectively real god “converted” him.

I'm getting it. Maybe you're not getting it. You made a point to Vlad in reply #882 that "the very god you think you "encountered" or some such as an adult just happened to be exactly the same god that these various organisations peddled to the young and impressionable you"

The point I made in response was that any discussion or sense of gods, whether they are objectively real or not, would have to be in terms based on prior information in the brain. Whatever the objectively real god brought to the party, the concept of the god forming in someone's brain - the person's thoughts - would be subjectively conceived based on past information stored in the brain. So whatever a person senses, I would expect that when they perceive that they sensed God, the thoughts in their brain would be based on their association with past information they have been exposed to. What's the alternative?

Why are you ignoring the rebuttal you’ve been given? Your response tried to draw an analogy between claims of an objectively “real for everyone”, factual, non-imaginary, "out there" god and your personal, subjective preferences about curries, 80s music etc. That’s called a category error, which is why the analogy failed.

As for your “prior information” sidebar, as a separate matter if the (supposed) entity that shows up doesn’t communicate anything about itself that the visitee doesn’t believe already all that implies is confirmation bias – and total relativism (because any description of god’s characteristics would be as (in)valid as any other).     

It's the same for how we conceive morals, values and our other subjective preferences such as tea and coffee - we link them to prior experience in our brains that was peddled to us when we were young and impressionable.

It absolutely isn’t. Morals, aesthetics, hot beverage preferences etc are all about the subjective. Claims of gods, dragons and leprechauns are all about the objective. These are fundamentally different categories of knowledge.