Rationality gone mad!

[Diogenes' Dog]

would not need to, stupid question, We are all born atheists it is the natural way of things.

We are born without concepts of any kind, so in that sense you are right. However, we may be born having a very direct experience of God. Certainly some children have a strong sense of wonder at the mystery of life which is an apprehension of God. Sadly they lose this as we adults fill them up with concepts of the world which may be religious or atheistic.

"When they lose their sense of awe, people turn to religion."
Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching (Ch.72)

Even an atheist like Dennett is becoming interested in investigating the "God shaped hole" that is left within us. So atheism may not be the "natural way of things", but the denial of a fundamental desire.

so they cannot be verified or proved or derived from observation or experiment. kants philosophy, is the investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning, it is purely assumption. atheism on the other hand assumes nothing, it's the natural way.

Not so. You cannot escape existing within a framework of belief about how the world is, based on assumptions. All scientific laws are generalisations based on assumptions about constancy, while all theories are only our unprovable conceptual models which best fit our observations. To base your view of the world on science is to base it on the assumptions of science, which you can only hope to minimise.

Atheism is cautious in building a model of the world that is derived only from objective empirical evidence. Theism takes a leap from where rationality leaves off, and discovers a much broader vision of the world on the other side. You can call it delusion, or enlightenment.

 

[geeser]

We are born without concepts of any kind, so in that sense you are right.

am right.

However, we may be born having a very direct experience of God.

complete supposition,

Certainly some children have a strong sense of wonder at the mystery of life

as they should there children, everything is new to them.

which is an apprehension of God.

rubbish, more supposition.

Sadly they lose this as we adults fill them up with concepts of the world which may be religious or atheistic.

not atheistic, they have that without being indoctrinated.

Even an atheist like Dennett is becoming interested in investigating the "God shaped hole" that is left within us.

is he, care to show where, I've read nothing.

"My refusal to play ball with my colleagues is deliberate, of course, since I view the standard philosophical terminology as worse than useless--a major obstacle to progress since it consists of so many errors"— Daniel Dennett,

So atheism may not be the "natural way of things", but the denial of a fundamental desire.

more supposition.

Not so. You cannot escape existing within a framework of belief about how the world is, based on assumptions. All scientific laws are generalisations based on assumptions

so theres no such thing as laws of nature, law of gravity, the law of thermodynamics, and Hook’s law of elasticity, etc.

about constancy, while all theories are only our unprovable conceptual models which best fit our observations. To base your view of the world on science is to base it on the assumptions of science, which you can only hope to minimise.

rubbish, A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

Atheism is cautious in building a model of the world that is derived only from objective empirical evidence.

not cautious, sensible.

Theism takes a leap from where rationality leaves off,

into the twilight zone, exactly.

and discovers a much broader vision of the world on the other side.

if you wish to live in your own personal dream world that your prerogative

You can call it delusion,

I will.

or enlightenment.

enlightenment, is using sense, reason, and interlect, not fantasy.

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

if you wish to live in your own personal dream world that your prerogative

I don't think we are going to agree geeser....

...Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres.

Albert Einstein - http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/atheism.html

You'd have hated Einstein. He'd have got right up your nose. You might remember I quoted Lao Tzu previously, but in the light of your comments here's Einstein on 'wonder' as the basis for religion.

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.

It was the experience of mystery--even if mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

Albert Einstein - http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/mysterious.html

And as for our persistent inbuilt "craving for God" - here's that Dennett quote:

<Interviewer>Yet faith, by definition, means believing in something whose existence cannot be proved scientifically. If we knew for sure that God existed, it would not require a leap of faith to believe in him.

<Dennett>Isn't it interesting that you want to take that leap? Why do you want to take that leap? Why does our craving for God persist? It may be that we need it for something. It may be that we don't need it, and it is left over from something that we used to be. There are lots of biological possibilities.

Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com

BTW, what's this nonsense you're spouting about theories?

rubbish, A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

I think you are very confused about what a theory is... You could do worse than look up Karl Popper on falsification or Kuhn or Feyerabend on how science progresses. No scientific theory or hypothesis is "provable" or even "verifiable" - they can only be disproved - it's part of the definition. A theory is not a law, it's a more or less useful conceptual model.

so theres no such thing as laws of nature, law of gravity, the law of thermodynamics, and Hook’s law of elasticity, etc.

Yes, these are scientific laws, and as such they are generalisations. Ask yourself what makes you certain that these laws are the same everywhere in the universe? How do you know they won't be broken tommorrow? Answer: You don't - that is an assumption. You cannot escape them!

 

[geeser]

Albert Einstein - http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/atheism.html

I too can quote Einstein, but the reason you require it, is unknown to me.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

- Albert Einstein, 24 March 1954 letter

The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being.

- Albert Einstein, 20 December 1939 letter

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

- Albert Einstein, "The World as I See It"

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

- Albert Einstein, 2 July 1945 letter to Guy H. Raner Jr

http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/albert_einstein/

BTW, what's this nonsense you're spouting about theories?
I think you are very confused about what a theory is... You could do worse than look up Karl Popper on falsification or Kuhn or Feyerabend on how science progresses. No scientific theory or hypothesis is "provable" or even "verifiable" - they can only be disproved - it's part of the definition. A theory is not a law, it's a more or less useful conceptual model.

not I, perhaps we were educated differently, me objectively, you subjectively

THEORY
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice

In science, a theory is a proposed description, explanation, or model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theory which explains why the apple behaves so is the current theory of gravitation.

A theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it often does in other contexts. a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from and/or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory. Commonly, a large number of more specific hypotheses may be logically bound together by just one or two theories. As a general rule for use of the term, theories tend to deal with much broader sets of universals than do hypotheses, which ordinarily deal with much more specific sets of phenomena or specific applications of a theory.


HYPOTHESIS
1. A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation.
2. Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption.

a tentative explanation for a phenomenon, used as a basis for further investigation

a supposition made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
3. The antecedent of a conditional statement.

a hypothesis must contain nothing which is at variance with known facts or principles:
it should not postulate conditions which cannot be verified empirically.
a hypothesis is not genuinely scientific if it is destined always to remain a hypothesis : it must be of such a nature as to be either proved or disproved by comparison with observed facts

 

[KennyJC]

I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

Interesting, I thought he was agnostic. But there you have it, from the horses mouth.

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

Interesting, I thought he was agnostic. But there you have it, from the horses mouth.

It would be Kenny, except the old horse also said...(New York Times, 25 April 1929) "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

and... (Saturday Evening Post Oct. 26, 1929, p.17)

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

I think HE didn't really know where to classify himself!

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

I too can quote Einstein, but the reason you require it, is unknown to me.

I rather wish I hadn't as contradicting quotes from Einstein are rapidly filling this forum! However, I quoted him because he rather eloquently defined "wonder" as the "knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude" and "knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty". You seemed to think this idea was "rubbish" and a "supposition" when I proposed it.

Combining this with the Dennett quote, I am arguing that however "deluded" you may think religion is, it is the response to a basic human drive. We as humans have a spiritual desire for the transcendant. Religion fulfills that desire and is perfectly rational when seen as a response to a fundemental human urge.

THEORY
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice.

In science, a theory is a proposed description, explanation, or model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theory which explains why the apple behaves so is the current theory of gravitation.

You are correct in quoting this from Wikipedia, however it is IMHO very misleading in implying that theories can be "verified". Further down the same page it goes on to state:

Humans construct theories in order to explain, predict and master phenomena (e.g. inanimate things, events, or the behaviour of animals). In many instances we are constructing models of reality. A theory makes generalizations about observations and consists of an interrelated, coherent set of ideas and models.

According to Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time, [...] "any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory.

If you look at the entry on Karl Popper (who coined falsification as the defining characteristic of a scientific theory)

Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single genuine counter-instance is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false. Popper's account of the logical asymmetry between verification and falsification lies at the heart of his philosophy of science. It also inspired him to take falsifiability as his criterion of demarcation between what is and is not genuinely scientific: a theory should be considered scientific if and only if it is falsifiable.

and...

In 'All Life is Problem Solving' (1999), Popper sought to explain the apparent progress of scientific knowledge—how it is that our understanding of the universe seems to improve over time. This problem arises from his position that the truth content of our theories, even the best of them, cannot be verified by scientific testing, but can only be falsified.

Thomas Kuhn's view of science is even more relative...

Kuhn (1961) maintained that the scientist generally has a theory in mind before designing and undertaking experiments so as to make empirical observations, and that the "route from theory to measurement can almost never be travelled backward". This perspective implies that the way in which theory is tested is dictated by the nature of the theory itself which led Kuhn (1961, p. 166) to argue that "once it has been adopted by a profession ... no theory is recognized to be testable by any quantitative tests that it has not already passed.

So, in conclusion even the best scientific theories are NOT certainties (as many non-scientists believe). We can only make models of reality that best fit the empirical data available at the time. Religious belief does much the same and though it goes beyond the conservative evidentialism of science, to label it as "delusion" is simply to make an unfounded statement of belief. As I said above, religion is the response to a spiritual yearning within human beings. As such it is perfectly rational. In fact it may be more irrational to deny it!

 

[geeser]

it is the response to a basic human drive. We as humans have a spiritual desire for the transcendant. Religion fulfills that desire and is perfectly rational when seen as a response to a fundemental human urge.

I dont have this aledged religious drive you refer to. I dont have a need, and neither do countless mllions of others, I have never come across this need in others either, so I can only put it down to supposition, (but I suppose it could be due to education that we dont have it) I have a need to be loved , I have a need for family, I have a need for community, humanity fills all those desires, nobody needs anything outside that.
it is pure delusion, to think there is something more.

even the best scientific theories are NOT certainties (as many non-scientists believe). We can only make models of reality that best fit the empirical data available at the time. Religious belief does much the same and though it goes beyond the conservative evidentialism of science, to label it as "delusion" is simply to make an unfounded statement of belief. As I said above, religion is the response to a spiritual yearning within human beings. As such it is perfectly rational. In fact it may be more irrational to deny it!

where you err is you, kuhn, and popper are putting theory where hypothesis should be. I say again an hypothesis must contain nothing which is at variance with known facts or principles:
it should not postulate conditions which cannot be verified empirically.
a hypothesis is not genuinely scientific if it is destined always to remain a hypothesis : it must be of such a nature as to be either proved or disproved by comparison with observed facts.

it cannot be come theory by being falsified, once they have been tested then they become scientific theory, and are tested again, as theories, they cannot be falsified, as they are fact based.

they can only lead to a wrong conclusion, as you stated, above, " We can only make models of reality that best fit the empirical data available at the time" it 's total lunacy to say they are falsified. ( at that time they are believed to be true).

I'm not going to say you cant prove them wrong that happens all the time, how else would we progress, heck we'd still be in the dark ages, if we did'nt propose a theory and then shout it down, test and retest. etc etc......but to say they are falsified is inanely stupid.

(falsified means someone did it deliberately, it dont work that way, they think they are right at the time, trying to class religion in the same vain is also inanely stupid, 6600 years ago the given evidence they had, lead them to believe, in a god did it scenerio, but over the millenia, this has been tested and found to be wanting, to believe it can be true, without fact based evidence is unfortunately delusional. )

religious people dont go round in the knowledge, they are telling lies they believe what they preach, but without evidence they are clearly giving out false information, (under a delusion), but totally innocent and without malice.

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

I dont have this aledged religious drive you refer to. I dont have a need, and neither do countless mllions of others, I have never come across this need in others either, so I can only put it down to supposition, (but I suppose it could be due to education that we dont have it) I have a need to be loved , I have a need for family, I have a need for community, humanity fills all those desires, nobody needs anything outside that.
it is pure delusion, to think there is something more.

That the "need for the spiritual" is becoming a subject for rational investigation by atheists like Dennett (among others), shows it is felt by many people, including atheists. I'm glad you are fulfilled without it! However, I'm curious as to what evidence you have to claim that "nobody needs anything outside that" and "it is pure delusion"? These sound like statements of belief based on ... what? Have you done research in this area? I'm sure you wouldn't stoop to "pure supposition"?

where you err is you, kuhn, and popper are putting theory where hypothesis should be. I say again an hypothesis must contain nothing which is at variance with known facts or principles:
it should not postulate conditions which cannot be verified empirically.
a hypothesis is not genuinely scientific if it is destined always to remain a hypothesis : it must be of such a nature as to be either proved or disproved by comparison with observed facts.

it cannot be come theory by being falsified, once they have been tested then they become scientific theory, and are tested again, as theories, they cannot be falsified, as they are fact based.

they can only lead to a wrong conclusion, as you stated, above, " We can only make models of reality that best fit the empirical data available at the time" it 's total lunacy to say they are falsified. ( at that time they are believed to be true).

Popper et al. are not saying a current theory IS falsified, but that it must always remain falsifiable i.e. tentative - e.g. Newton's Gravitation Theory, which were thought rock solid up to the 20th Centuary was shown to be inadequate and so superceded by General Relativity. Our model of gravity is now as a distorton of time-space which fits the evidence better than Newton's "force at a distance".

Other casualties are the "Phlogiston" theory which was the dominant theory for about 100 years until Lavoisier "falsified" it. All theories risk the same fate. None contain final proofs. We can never be certain our models are the TRUTH.

religious people dont go round in the knowledge, they are telling lies they believe what they preach, but without evidence they are clearly giving out false information, (under a delusion), but totally innocent and without malice.

I'm glad you don't think theists are all malicious liars. However, theists are also not without evidence. What religions lack is "objective" repeatable evidence. Evidence for religion is gained subjectively through experience. God leaves no footprints (unless you see the universe as God's footprints) - hence the "leap of faith".

 

[KennyJC]

It would be Kenny, except the old horse also said...(New York Times, 25 April 1929) "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

Except towards the end of his life he quite clearly stated he was an atheist and always had been. As well has stating that he was fed up with theists misinterpreting his quotes to make him sound religious or a literal believer in 'God'.

The 'Spinoza' God is one of his most peddled quotes, as is the 'Gods playing dice' one. Although since he was always an atheist, it suggests to me that he meant IF there was a God, then he was only detectable by observing nature, which only an idiot would disagree with.

 

[john smith]

Interesting thread.

what is the 'Spinoza' God?

 

[KennyJC]

what is the 'Spinoza' God?

The notion that it is only possible to observe God through nature and structure of the universe (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[john smith]

Thanks.

And do you believe in this?

 

[KennyJC]

I don't have any belief in an intelligent creator, although if there was one, I agree that it would only be visible through nature.. ie.. scientific knowledge of the universe builds a picture of the presumed intelligent being..

 

[Sarkus]

You mean the "Made by God" label stamped into every single one of the minutest particles that exist?

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

what is the 'Spinoza' God?

Spinoza believed God and the Natural World were one and the same. We exist inside the mind of God! Quote from Wikipedia on Spinoza

Spinoza contended that "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") was a being of infinitely many attributes, of which extension and thought were two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as two different, parallel "subworlds" that neither overlap nor interact. This formulation is a historically significant panpsychist solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisage a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which is itself is part of the deterministic system of which everything in nature was a part of. Thus, God is the natural world and has no personality.

Except towards the end of his life he quite clearly stated he was an atheist and always had been. As well has stating that he was fed up with theists misinterpreting his quotes to make him sound religious or a literal believer in 'God'.

The 'Spinoza' God is one of his most peddled quotes, as is the 'Gods playing dice' one. Although since he was always an atheist, it suggests to me that he meant IF there was a God, then he was only detectable by observing nature, which only an idiot would disagree with.

Oh no - we are going backwards it seems! He wasn't "always an atheist"... He clearly stated he wasn't an atheist AT ALL!! See http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/

"..there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

"The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."

"There lies the weaknesss of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but "bared the miracles."

If you are thinking of the quote given above:

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

He is clearly indicating that a Jesuit priest would see him as an atheist, because he didn't believe in the narrow definition of God defined by the Jesuits.

He seemed to have believed in a impersonal, non-intervening impenetrable rationality or mind behind the universe. This (as I state in another thread) is like the Neo-Platonist model of Plotinus' spirituality. He might also be descriibed as a Deist.

However I would refer you to the other thread because we are in danger of duplicating!

 

[geeser]

That the "need for the spiritual" is becoming a subject for rational investigation by atheists like Dennett (among others), shows it is felt by many people, including atheists.

I very much doubt that. so lets ask them

I'm glad you are fulfilled without it! However, I'm curious as to what evidence you have to claim that "nobody needs anything outside that"

I'm setting up a poll, to see if indeed atheist believe in this need for the spritual, I'm 99% sure they wont, having spoke to my friends and family, over the last few days regarding this debate, I have'nt come across anybody, theist included, that would say we have a basic need for the spiritual.

and "it is pure delusion"?

it is without any evidence to verify it. can only be deemed as delusional.

These sound like statements of belief based on ... what?

statements of fact based on your lack of verifiable evidence, so they can only be false.

Popper et al. are not saying a current theory IS falsified, but that it must always remain falsifiable i.e. tentative - e.g. Newton's Gravitation Theory, which were thought rock solid up to the 20th Centuary was shown to be inadequate and so superceded by General Relativity. Our model of gravity is now as a distorton of time-space which fits the evidence better than Newton's "force at a distance".

I was wrong regarding "falsified", I was always off the understanding the falsified meant being fraudulant, lying to decieve, but having gone through a number of dictionaries, theres a third option, to prove false/incorrect.
therefore I take back what I said.

I'm glad you don't think theists are all malicious liars. However, theists are also not without evidence. What religions lack is "objective" repeatable evidence. Evidence for religion is gained subjectively through experience. God leaves no footprints (unless you see the universe as God's footprints) - hence the "leap of faith".

agreed there is no real evidence, only the personal believe thats in the mind of every single believer, religion is based on faith alone.

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

I very much doubt that. so lets ask them. I'm setting up a poll, to see if indeed atheist believe in this need for the spritual, I'm 99% sure they wont, having spoke to my friends and family, over the last few days regarding this debate, I have'nt come across anybody, theist included, that would say we have a basic need for the spiritual.

Ah... sounds like you know the results of your research before you conduct it. Very dangerous in science! Ever heard of a biased poll?

If you are correct, your research will need to look at several reasons for a negative result. These could be:

1) No such need exists.
2) The need exists, but those polled are unaware of it due to other "needs". (see Maslows hierarchy of needs).
3) The need exists, but those polled are reluctant to admit it, as this compromises their professed beliefs (i.e. atheism).
4) The phrasing of the poll is "leading" (i.e. biased).

Good luck! By the way, you might want to look up self transcendance in "Maslows Hierarchy of Needs" where it says:

At the top of the triangle, self-trancendence is also sometimes referred to as spiritual needs...

...Maslow believes that we should study and cultivate peak experiences as a way of providing a route to achieve personal growth, integration, and fulfillment. Peak experiences are unifying, and ego-transcending, bringing a sense of purpose to the individual and a sense of integration. Individuals most likely to have peak experiences are self-actualized, mature, healthy, and self-fulfilled. All individuals are capable of peak experiences. Those who do not have them somehow depress or deny them.

BTW, I'm deeply suspicious of the logic that "lack of verifiable evidence" means something "can only be false" or "deemed as delusional". Do you have verifiable evidence for this belief? I suspect it is itself self-referentially false and delusional?

...without any evidence to verify it. can only be deemed as delusional. ...statements of fact based on your lack of verifiable evidence, so they can only be false.

Can you for instance provide "verifiable evidence" that something is funny to someone without a sense of humour? Does that mean humour is false, and laughter some stange behavior exhibited only by delusional people? That might explain why people high on :m: or drink laugh so much!

agreed there is no real evidence, only the personal believe thats in the mind of every single believer, religion is based on faith alone.

Faith, followed and supported by evidence from experience.

 

[geeser]

just a spammed post to put this back on the front page, because of the spammer dattaswammi. advertiseing his crap.
please ignore and carry on debating

 

[geeser]

Ah... sounds like you know the results of your research before you conduct it. Very dangerous in science!

not so, this is what a theory is, is it not, it does'nt become fact until it tested retested and proved.

If you are correct, your research will need to look at several reasons for a negative result.

why, there is either a need or not, only two possible outcomes.

These could be:
1) No such need exists.
2) The need exists, but those polled are unaware of it due to other "needs". (see Maslows hierarchy of needs).
3) The need exists, but those polled are reluctant to admit it, as this compromises their professed beliefs (i.e. atheism).
4) The phrasing of the poll is "leading" (i.e. biased).

number one is ok and the other should be "2) the need exists." anything else is just BS saying someone is either reluctant or unaware, is just an irrationality, to try and justify the invisible, saying it does exist or does'nt exist, cannot be leading. now can it.

BTW, I'm deeply suspicious of the logic that "lack of verifiable evidence" means something "can only be false" or "deemed as delusional". Do you have verifiable evidence for this belief?

yes the lack of evidence for yours.

Can you for instance provide "verifiable evidence" that something is funny to someone without a sense of humour?

yes, by showing him, everybody else laughing.

Faith, followed and supported by evidence from experience.

what experience, it can only be, a subjective experience, no religious experience exist in reality.