You have no idea what I believe. In the context of myself, I try to never mention the word 'believe' or its derivatives and if you look closely I almost always use the words "I think" since they are non-committal. If I use the word "believe" it is because I might have done so in haste, perhaps seeing the word so often causes me to inject it here or there in a moment of inattention to detail.
so when a person states that he thinks such-and-such is delusional
repeatedly, does this in no way suggest to you that the person
believes such-and-such to be delusional?
or, for instance, consider this example from a post previous in this thread:
In another thread, schizoid behavior was presented as normal when subject to the culture of an era but I can't envision there ever being a time when it would be acceptable to believe something that's obviously been proven to not be true.
i would have to review this other thread to get a sense of what was being said, but two possibilities emerge for me:
1) was this sentiment regarding schizoid behavior expressed more in a laingian sense? if so, then i can't even understand what you are trying to say here.
2) was the sentiment expressed with respect to application of schizoid personality dx made from
outside of the culture? IOW were western diagnostic models being used in discussing a hypothetical dx for an individual or individuals in a culture far removed, in respects obviously important here, from western cultures?
in either scenario--and i could be wrong here, i am speculating that one or the other
might have been the sense in which the claim to allude to was stated--i'm not sure how your concluding remark would be pertinent: "I can't envision there ever being a time when it would be acceptable to believe something that's
obviously been proven to not be true."
like i stated, i'm just speculating upon the senses in which that opening sentiment
could have been intended, and i would have to look at the original thread. but with respect to either 1 or 2, the implication that the "schizoid" individual or individuals believe(s) something "obviously been proven to not be true" seems to miss the mark. but it also begs the question: what particular things have been "proven not to be true," in such a case?
So if you believe I have beliefs and I counter by saying they are not beliefs, only thoughts, then are your beliefs in my thinking fraudulent? Remember, the internet is a stage where I can act out any persona I desire. I am telling you that you are wrong, however it does me no good since I can't prove it. So how much of belief by any person in anything of a human quality is truly fraudulent ? ...Well there's no way of telling because of the vagaries of human cultural and social interaction.
again, i would suggest that your insistent claim that you
think certain things are "fraudulent" does suggest that you
believe they are fraudulent.
If I told you that today was my birthday would you believe it? Not likely but you might check my profile to see if it is true. If you do check then it will say that it is yet you cannot be 100% sure. The tendency would be to believe it is my birthday knowing that it might not truly be, especially after reading this.
generally, i assume most people are at least making the effort to be honest. so when a person says, "today is my birthday," i tend to believe them.
This is a science forum. I would think that science has done more to reveal the fraudulent than any other discipline. Yet when it encroaches upon the human mind it suddenly is no longer the purveyor of truth. I think this is fair since we are basically in the stone age as far as knowing how the mind works. Thus any conclusions reached are not proof of much yet.
i largely agree with you here (minor quibbles with respect to phrasing, but...), but i think it important to note a couple of things: there is an awful lot of irresponsible science, unfortunately; there is also an awful lot of
misconstrual of science by non-scientists drawing ridiculous conclusions, which bear little proximity to the claims of the original.
I was hoping someone might have brought this up to counter my claim that no era contained culturally induced falsehoods. The Sun for a number of centuries was accepted as a god. Has science dispelled this truth? I would think so. Would you consider those who started or perpetuated the divine solar belief be classified as manipulators? The people who still believe in the sun god, are they delusional and suffering from a mental illness? Are they true believers?
i think the notion that there have been cultures which worship the sun as god a somewhat suspect one, and i am not so sure that there is much evidence to support this.
as to people who presently believe that the sun is god, well, one cannot really say much at all about them without knowing what exactly this
means to them: are they somehow suggesting that the sun is a "supernatural" entity? or, do matters of gods and such--for
them--not really have much at all to do with the supernatural? if we deign to judge from the perspective of not really knowing what it means for something to be "god," we can't really conclude that they are delusional about anything.