ethics of belief

[Arioch]

@wynn --

Me? I'm fine. In fact I'm quite amused with your attempts at pushing an explanation which is quite obviously inferior to mine. It plain doesn't explain as much as well.

 

[Enmos]

You have never told a theist that they are wrong, nor have you ever seen an atheist tell a theist that they are wrong?

As far as I'm aware, I have never directly told a theist that they are wrong regarding their faith unless it was factually inaccurate. If I did, it was probably a reaction to a theist telling me that I was wrong.
At any rate, most Christians will tell nonbelievers that they are wrong not to believe. Then there are some that even will tell you that you are living in sin and will burn in hell for all eternity if you do not convert to their particular brand of Christianity. They will even go door to door to tell you that.

 

[wynn]

Arioch -

I find my explanation with reactance incomparably better than yours.

your attempts at pushing an explanation which is quite obviously inferior to mine. It plain doesn't explain as much as well.

Notice how you hide behind objectivist language?


I dare you to say


"In fact I'm quite amused with your attempts at pushing an explanation which, to me, is quite obviously inferior to mine. In my opinion, it plain doesn't explain as much as well."

 

[Jan Ardena]

It is the theists that are telling us that we are wrong, not the other way around.

You some theists, don't you?

jan.

 

[Enmos]

You some theists, don't you?

jan.

Care to rephrase that? 'Some' is not a verb..

 

[Arioch]

@wynn --

The question isn't whether or not you like your explanation more, but why you like it more. It certainly doesn't have the same explanatory power as mine does, it doesn't explain nearly as much as well as mine does. So what criteria are you judging your explanation on? How good it makes you feel?

Notice how you hide behind objectivist language?

Notice how you're deflecting attention away from the fact that you can't explain why your explanation is preferable to mine?

And from a standpoint of parsimony my explanation is objectively better. It fits the facts and explains more cases more thoroughly than yours does.

 

[gmilam]

I agree. I think that is primary cause of belief in the afterlife, by far and away. They are brought up in the belief, they parents, families and communities have this belief. It is part of a network of beliefs that support and are supported by it.

But I do think there is a psychological reason atheists think the main reason is fear of death, as long as we are speculating.

If you have another reason why you think people believe in an afterlife when there is no empirical evidence to support the idea, I'm all ears...

 

[Jan Ardena]

Care to rephrase that? 'Some' is not a verb..

Sorry I meant to say...

...You mean some theists, don't you?

jan.

 

[kx000]

Afterlife, no? Death, is death. It is much like life, but faith plays a even bigger part.

 

[Enmos]

Sorry I meant to say...

...You mean some theists, don't you?

jan.

Yes, of course, not all.

 

[wynn]

@wynn --

The question isn't whether or not you like your explanation more, but why you like it more. It certainly doesn't have the same explanatory power as mine does, it doesn't explain nearly as much as well as mine does. So what criteria are you judging your explanation on? How good it makes you feel?


Notice how you're deflecting attention away from the fact that you can't explain why your explanation is preferable to mine?

And from a standpoint of parsimony my explanation is objectively better. It fits the facts and explains more cases more thoroughly than yours does.

Yup. Reactance.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Afterlife, no? Death, is death. It is much like life, but faith plays a even bigger part.

So you believe this life is all there is?

jsn.

 

[kx000]

So you believe this life is all there is?

jsn.

No. There is life, and there is death, and life again for the faitful until our work is done, which it just about is.

 

[Pineal]

Nice straw man argument. You'll notice that my post is not comparing belief in an afterlife to childhood imaginary friends, as evidenced by my use of the phrase "much like" in my sentence. You'll note that I did not say "belief in an afterlife is like imaginary friends". No, what I said was, and I'm quoting exactly here:

"Whether you agree with my analysis or not you can't deny that the two are quite similar, much like belief that god is talking to you is quite similar to the "imaginary friends" of many childhoods."

In no way does that sentence compare belief in an afterlife to imaginary friends.

Come on man, I know that you can do better than this. I typically like your posts and find them at least slightly insightful. This is a low that I've never seen you sink to before.

I read quickly, my apologies.

That would work if we didn't find similar beliefs among people not raised in them as well as in all social and economic groups.

The vast majority of theists were raised in theist families. Think of the entire middle east, as well as most 'Western' theists, South American theists and so on.

There is one common factor between the two groups though and it's a very likely cause of the behavior, the fear of death. You don't need two causes to explain this one phenomenon, one underlying cause is enough and the "fear of death" explanation is powerful enough to account for all such afterlife beliefs.

Except it is very likely untrue.

But the socio/economic/familial factors aren't enough to account for all such cases, therefore you have implicitly posited two completely different causes for the same phenomenon. Such poor form is unexpected from you.

Well, first of all many 'things' in society have many causes - marriage, poverty, political opinions and so on. So your application of some rule of parsimony makes no sense to me. Second, most people would have to actively leave their religions or at least decide to no longer believe what they were taught and what their families believe and friends and teachers, etc. So of course it is the primary cause - how they were raised.

I was not making any argument based on economic status, not sure where that came in.

What I see you doing is thinking that you know the psychology of theists in general and can deduct what their real motivation is. When in fact, we can see, without guessing about people's motivations, that children are taught about afterlives in theistic families and communities, and that many people, theist and atheists alike, take on the cultural beliefs of their familes and communities. This requires no depth psychology to see as a factor.

To defend your motivation based hypothesis, you should at least have some empirical, since it is about what is beneath the surface.

As a child who was sent to a religious school by atheist parents, I know that I believed in an afterlife long before I was afraid of death.

And I went back to your first post on this line, supporting Fraggle, and found....

 

[Pineal]

The question still remains why and how the belief in an afterlife first arose, and why it caught on.

Yes, I agree. My 'it is the upbringing' is what I think any atheist really must admit is a more likely primary cause. I am working within the limitations of what tend to be their beliefs. Note: you may be saying that really, what they are saying is that the original cause of the belief back when was fear of death, but this does not fit with what Fraggle and Arioch say earlier in the thread where they are making a case that current individual believers have this as a motivation.

 

[Pineal]

It is the theists that are telling us that we are wrong, not the other way around.

This particular part of the discussion is dealing with how some atheists here are telling theists and others, that 'really' they believe in an afterlife because of their fear of death. This is telling theists not only that they are wrong but reading their minds, their unconscious minds at that.

 

[Arioch]

@Pineal --

Well, first of all many 'things' in society have many causes - marriage, poverty, political opinions and so on. So your application of some rule of parsimony makes no sense to me.

Well yes, but when you actively investigate the phenomenon you find that there is one underlying cause, so my application of parsimony is validated by evidence. Your rebuttal is invalid.

Second, most people would have to actively leave their religions or at least decide to no longer believe what they were taught and what their families believe and friends and teachers, etc.

Seeing as many people do, in fact, do this, I fail to see how it is a problem for my explanation.

 

[Pineal]

Well yes, but when you actively investigate the phenomenon you find that there is one underlying cause, so my application of parsimony is validated by evidence. Your rebuttal is invalid.

Can you provide some evidence for this assertion that all societal phenomena have a single or primary cause? This sounds convenient and unsupported. What evidence by the way?

Seeing as many people do, in fact, do this, I fail to see how it is a problem for my explanation.

The vast majority do not. The vast majority believed in an afterlife long before fear of death came into their lives. That was the case for me.

We can see that children take on the beliefs presented to them by families and teachers/religious leaders.

This requires no reading of hidden motivations. Your arguement is based on intuition and deduction. On the other hand we can look around and see that the ideas that are told to children often stick, especially in areas where most people hold those beliefs, anywere from the Bible Belt to Syria for theist issues, but all over the place around other issues. We know that people pick up beliefs from parents and other adults and tend to hold onto these when not directly exposed to counterexamples - though even this often does nothing - or longer training in other worldviews or beliefs - like what a theist might experience going to an East Coast college.

There is nothing controversial about the idea that culture is passed on to children raised in those cultures. The belief in afterlife is one belief amongst many in many cultures, most in fact. That I consider this the primary cause of belief in afterlife does not rely on intuition remotely as much as your explanation. It also is more parsimonius since most of them would admit this is why they at least had the idea in the first place. We don't need to posit a hidden psychological factor that they must deny is a factor.

We can see this all over the place. Your intution is supporting a cause, without empirical evidence, based on your intuition it is the primary cause.

As you would say - I usually find your posts interesting and they are usually better argued, but this seems rather weak to me.

I just went back to your original post supporting Fraggle,

Exactly.

We see the same thing in the paranoid conspiracy theorist. There's something in their lives that they can't control(say they had a bad run in with the law or something) and to cope with the complete lack of control they invent vast, far reaching conspiracies centered around the government(or a shadow government in the case of the NWOers) attempting to impede their lives. In a twisted way it gives them a complete sense of control as it is their actions which are driving this conspiracy, it's the ultimate power trip(well, not quite) as they are not only driving this conspiracy but staying "one step ahead" as well.

A good parallel can be drawn between this and beliefs in the afterlife as both share a number of traits in common. In both cases they give people a sense of control(conspiracy theorists gain "control" over their adversary and afterlife believers gain "control" over what happens after death). In both cases there's absolutely no evidence to support the belief(although conspiracy theories are slightly better evidenced than any afterlife). In both cases the belief tends to be irrefutable in that no amount of evidence or debating to the contrary will convince the believer, the conspiracy theorist will just accuse you of being "in on it" and the believer in the afterlife will just state that they "know it for truth".

Of course, I don't expect the believers in here to accept this analysis.

You use a hypothesis about conspiracy theorists to support a hypothesis about believers in the afterlife. IOW a guess about what motivates CTs is used to support a guess about is the primary cause of believers in the afterlife.

That is really poor argument, especially in the context of this forum.
A psychologist making such claims would have their paper rejected by any peer review at any scholarly journal if this was the basis of their argument. Note: I realize posts are not scholarly articles which is why I used the word 'basis'. IOW if this was the line of reasoning. It's guesswork.

 

[Pineal]

If you have another reason why you think people believe in an afterlife when there is no empirical evidence to support the idea, I'm all ears...

There is incredible amounts of empirical evidence that children take on the beliefs of their parents and communities, atheists and theists alike. Culture, which religion and religious beliefs are a part of, is passed on to children in those cultures. This is obviously the primary reason people believe in the afterlife. It is a part of their culture they have no challenged.

 

[Enmos]

This particular part of the discussion is dealing with how some atheists here are telling theists and others, that 'really' they believe in an afterlife because of their fear of death. This is telling theists not only that they are wrong but reading their minds, their unconscious minds at that.

No, theists are telling atheists that there is a heaven and that in order to go there after you die you need to believe in God.
Atheists don't believe that.
It is the theists that are claiming to know how things are, according to them. Not the other way around.