I've been thinking more and more about the psychology behind different worldviews. I guess cognitive philosophy would be a better way to describe it, since I have no empirical test of my own to reference. By the title of this thread and considering recent posts, the thoughts here are of course catalyzed by analyzing Stahrwe. I truly want to discuss the philosophy of delusion here, and no specifics or name calling. So when I speak of delusion, I speak of it in general. If you still find yourself analyzing the words defensively, at least tell me so that I know there will be bias.

One concept I've been thinking about in conjunction with delusion is the immunity to certain concepts. Poisoning the well is one way. For example, I used to work for a construction company where it was common knowledge that one of the competitors(a different construction company) always screwed things up and all the employees were unskilled morons. Coincidentally, one of the workers from the other company quit, and was hired by us to work alongside me. Long story short, he turned out to be brilliant, and his unorthodox ways were far more efficient than what I'd been doing. But I was originally prejudiced to think he would be garbage, and was immune to the idea that he could have been brilliant. I pride myself on critical thinking, but was blind in this case. I refused his silly methods for two weeks, and he finally snapped and gave me an eloquent tongue lashing. A single display of what he meant dissolved my prejudice. It was a good lesson.

In the case of delusion, there is a unique difference. It is an introverted belief, a belief about oneself. Since your beliefs are the rubric by which you judge and analyze the world around you, nothing you do will send up red flags. To judge yourself delusional (as most people understand it), you would need to have determined some of your behaviors to be "backwards" or "abnormal". But that would never happen, since you judge all your behaviors from within that very same belief system. Internal consistency is all that is needed.

For some people where faith is a factor in their lives, there is still internal consistency. The reason is that faith is touted as the method by which to know god(or something similar). It is a virtue for this reason. For many people, it is a more valuable 'method' than logic. If some of your beliefs are illogical, then it is logic which fails, since faith is more valuable than logic. The immediate argument is that this is circular. Because before you even believe the part in the bible which implies faith is a virtue, you must have faith that it's true. So the reasoning is circular, but circularity doesn't matter! If someone proposes that your faith is only supported by circularity, that someone's words are judged through the rubric of faith. The result is that the person is considered wrong, even if no apparent flaw is in their argument, because faith is valued higher than logic.

What prevents someone from exploring how it "feels" to consider a contrary argument as true is immunization. I am not immunized to the idea that I'm deluded. In fact, i consider it from time to time, as a healthy checkup. As a disclaimer, I consider it honestly, rather than considering the exercise as a "badge" by which to verify my sanity. Ego can feed a delusion, and must be quelled as much as possible when thinking metacognitively.

I think the immunity to the idea of delusion applies both to the positive claim, and to the negative claim. On either side of the "agnostic" position, that is. For example, in the movie "Inception" with Leonardo Di Caprio, his former wife had committed suicide because she was immunized to the idea that she was sane. This is an example of being immune to the negative claim. Nothing would convince her that she wasn't deluded, because a certain variable within the plotline had immunized her to the idea that she wasn't(deluded).

As for immunity to the positive claim, a very specific poisoning of the well is needed. In a sense, to build an immunity to the positive claim, the sources of the positive claim must be neutralized. If it is within the belief system that accusations of delusion are actually evidence that a person is untrustworthy, then that belief system has been immunized against the vast majority(if not all) potential sources of accusation. Which means, the idea of being deluded is dismissed without consideration. This makes a delusion sustainable because outside information is necessary to judge oneself delusional. As I said above, any self-judgement for delusion will turn up negative results, so external judgement is necessary. But external judgement with respect to delusion is categorically neutralized. So the delusion is sustainable.

Sorry for the wall of text, but it took that long to explain my thoughts. Anyone feel like discussing this? I understand if not, perhaps I'll make it into a blog.

Interbane, I'm not sure about your discussion on consistency. I think it is more usually the case that delusional people are ignorant, and do not care about the inconsistency between their beliefs and the evidence that proves they are wrong. They avoid informing themselves about this evidence, because their delusion 'works' for them even though it is inconsistent with the world around them. Having a belief that works in practice does not actually require that the belief be consistent. For example fundamentalists believe that the Bible is inerrant, even though the Bible is inconsistent. When delusions are shared by a community this avoidance of the problem of inconsistency becomes easy.

Only when delusional people start to argue with people who are sane, does their delusion come into conflict with reality. Generally, anyone who argues tries to be logical, and not for example to admit that they believe things that are untrue. They argue their beliefs are true. Such argument requires logic. When glaring inconsistencies emerge in the logic of an argument, holding it becomes a matter of moral character and intelligence. To defend a statement you know to be untrue is immoral or moronic. Most deluded people can be helped if they have good will. The trouble is the few whose private interests are served by peddling lies, and who are able to delude others.

It happens that a community consensus can be wrong. The Catholic Church thought that Galileo was delusional. However, the test was logic, that when the consistency between Galileo's claims and repeated observation was demonstrated, the church was shown to be wrong, and had to recant.

The evidence means nothing if faith is held on a higher pedestal than logic. I find it hard to believe that a person can both understand something is a lie, and at the same time believe it's the truth. I think many times a person will sweep the belief under the proverbial rug with the condition that it's an unsolved argument. Even though the opposing argument is seemingly flawless, it's nothing more than that person's supposed inability to see the flaws. The worldview is maintained, if they believe they are still correct, but just can't navigate the concepts well enough to prove it. So then, rather than a flawless contrary argument being a refutation of what they believe, it is merely evidence(to them) that they aren't smart enough to see how the contrary argument is false.

That's exactly right, interbane.

I have heard believers who are trying to remain faithful come up against sound arguments they are unable to defeat and say something just along those lines.

The same effect but in the opposite direction is observed whenever i have seen outspoken proponents of some dogma get their asses handed to them they usually say that the critic doesn't understand the depth of the dogma. Usually meaning that the dogma must be interpreted and cross referenced, or only understood once the entirety of the document or dogma is understood. If you can't make sense of it then it just means you need to try to believe harder.

It's indoctrination, i think. They have been told that something is true and when they themselves have doubts because observation does not match up with the indoctrination then they have to argue themselves back into belief. That goes for religion, jingoism, and regular old sports fanatacism.

It's a critical point. Either it starts people down the path to critical thinking, or they just believe HARDER and lie to themselves to maintain what they have set out to believe. Come hell of high water.

How severely that delusion mishapes their lives depends on the length of grasp that idea has.

Somone who is a bigot, for instance. They may hate jews and spout poisonous slander about them all day long. Meanwhile, they are friends with a jew who doesn't wear their religion on their sleave. What do they do if/when they find out that person IS exactly what they have been indoctrinated to hate?

They must re-evaluate their long held bigotry and either discard it, or double down, lose a friend over nothing, and become even more unreasonable, and impervious to reality.

Right, one thing we've seen proved again and again is that there's no limit or restriction on what can be believed. If the psychological need is there, it doesn't matter what the evidence says. This is in cases where the belief is remote enough from practical consequences not to cause a threat to immediate well-being. Creationists in general are just as willing to accept evidence of the more instrumental kind as anyone else. I recall someone (johnson?) saying that a creationist will analyze the written evidence that a particular lawnmower is a good machine as critically as anyone. For his failure to do the same analysis with the Bible, he gets, as he sees it, benefits rather than problems.

This is what I've seen as well. Perhaps unknowingly, this is a great example of a priority change between the process of belief and the object of belief. It may be that most people understand that following some process of critical analysis produces superior results. But if there are already results(beliefs) we hold dearly, the process takes second stage. The process 'could' be used, but if it fails then it is considered a flawed process for that application. Another process is used, until the result you want is produced, or nearly produced. There are even instances where logic doesn't apply(when it fails to support the belief).

If true, then everyone is prone to the same problem. Atheists will analyze the written evidence that a particular lawnmover is a good machine as critically as anyone. For his failure to do the same analysis with The Evolution of God, he gets, as he sees it, benefits rather than problems.

The only failure I remember from a thread about TeoG was yours Stahrwe. You assumed the bible was true, so therefore the account of the call of Abram had to be considered. But the assumption that a conclusion is true is precisely what delusion is. I haven't read TeoG. I may very well agree with your criticisms after a full read. But from the small amount of information you gave, you had belief-first rationalization, a product of a bad process. You may even have been correct about it, but if you were, it would have been coincidence. You didn't approach the problem correctly.

If there are disagreements over such things as TeoG, the person who is deluded will believe with absolute conviction(based on seemingly good reasons) that they are correct. Above and beyond the disagreements, that person was you. All others implied a modicum of doubt, that they had to re-evaluate the process they used to arrive at the answer. But when the process is secondary, conviction comes naturally.

Following the correct process isn't easy. In fact, it's extremely difficult, because it requires that we analyze a subject with as many of our biases in mind as possible. As well as adhering to methods which are proven over long periods of time to arrive at the truth. The details can be complex, and sometimes difficult to cognitively navigate. Elementary blunders such as arguments from ignorance or appeals to authority should be so rare as to never be seen. But such heuristics creep back into the minds of the best of us. We must realize some of our heuristics are actually non-sequitur or fallacious, even though it's a hard pill to swallow.

You need to revisit my post then. There were numerous examples of Wright stating that some was not in the Bible and I pointed out that it was.

His premise about the origins of monotheism were convoluted and he ignored, didn't even mention the Biblical account of Abraham, I still don't know why even after asking Wright and getting a bogus answer.

There is another book which has this part that says something along the lines of every human on Earth having only evil thoughts. What do you think of that claim? Are you able to examine it critically?

There's another part where some powerful being supposedly put a guy to sleep and made a woman from one of his ribs. How about that one? Do you just swallow it all up wholesale without a single neuron firing?

I'm sure you're able to read TeoG or a similar book and critically analyze it to a certain extent. But your brain turns into a bucket of throat pudding when you examine passages from the bible. Even something as simple as an error by omission you will accept without a second thought. Not because there truly "was" an omission, but because you MUST believe there was an omission, since you already believe the words are true. Had an atheist author made an error of omission, such as not mentioning certain hypotheses, you'd be all over it as if it had the potential to poison the entire book. Two very different analytical criterion, and what's most interesting is they both do their own part to sustain your delusion.

How about critical analysis of arguments against science? Let's say there's a sailboat out in the water, and you climb up to the crow's nest and drop the ball. Keep in mind the sailboat is moving. How far would you "guess" the ball dropped before it hit the deck? How far did it truly drop?

How about some make-believe parameters on how far a species will mutate before they're not allowed to mutate anymore and must mutate in the "other direction?" Is a monkey only 'allowed' to produce offspring with a mutation that is +- 5% of their body weight? If you had to critically analyze these arguments against evolution, what would your conclusion be?

What about producing evidence? If someone wrote something a long time ago and you found the letter(perhaps in your basement), how much would you trust the book(let's say it was a diary). What if the person made some extraordinary claims, such as that he jumped from an airplane that was about to explode, and although he hit the ground very very hard without a parachute, he walked away. Or perhaps he walked by a barren garden outside a charter school in Africa, urinated in the garden, and came back the next day to find the garden full and ripe. Let's say this testimony was written by the person in question, then without changing possession made its way into your hands. The question is, are you required to accept this evidence as true, since it is old, and it is a testimony? Or should you examine it before considering it true?

Or how about the so-called prophecy that you're 100% certain is correct? That means you believe there is absolutely no way that it could be possible that the prophecy is false. It is absolutely impossible in your head. There is no way any other explanation even has 1 in a trillion chance of being an alternative explanation. Is that the status of your belief with regards to the prophecy?

Honestly, the only answer I care about from you is in regards to the prophecy. I understand you will rationalize the rest, or dismiss it outright. I don't care about any such answers from you. But with the prophecy, I'd like to know if you stand beside your previous claim. Then we can dig much much deeper into the nuances of the mathematics, and dig up the details that you're glossing over. If you then change your mind, is there ever a point in the future that you can legitimately claim to be 100% certain without also being an idiot for doing so?

What is you obsession with this idea? I can and it is clearly not only defensible but also reasonable. Of more interest, is this some Interebane issue of interest of is it a blowback from Sam Harris or Dawkins?



You mean the first surgery with anesthesia 6000 years before humans figured it out?

Perhaps we can turn the coin over and ask if you believe that everything in the universe existed at some point in an infinitely small, infinitely massive something whose origin is unknown and of no interest; yes?



For some reason you feel I should ignore huge errors just because it relates to the Bible. In one instance Wright claims that the most accurate book, in his opinion is Mark. He then made a statement that such and such wasn't in the Bible. But it was, and it was in Mark. These are not trivial errors, the one in question related to the term Son of Man and Wright was using its absence to attack the divine nature of Jesus, at least if I remember correctly. The sheer number of errors was also hard to swallow given the subject.

Let's turn the coin over again and ask if you would accept a book about evolution which omitted any mention of Darwin?



Now you're mocking one of my early posts. Fine with me and in the spirit of your question, and given the omissions the answer to both questions is: all the way unless it is interferred with.



one of the monkeys or, perhaps in the spirit of marriage both should diet until they are within the weight range. But my experience is that most male monkeys don't like fat females.




I presume for this round we are playing with the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the validity of ancient documents. In this case, given your description the conclusion would be that it is an authentic document, that whoever the author was presumed to be would be accepted as factual.



What prophecy are your referring to?



If we are playing games then you must be specific with your question.

Yes, that's the one. Do you believe it?



I'm agnostic towards that hypothesis. I believe there could be another answer, such as the big bounce. We need more information. Do you disagree with my position?



Why on Earth would any book need to mention Darwin to be taken as a serious essay or article or book on evolution? There's no reason to, and in fact a vast majority don't. The information, based on observation, is what supports the theory. Not a 'name'! Even some of Darwin's original statements on evolution have been erroneous. Do you disagree with my position(I would accept a book on evolution without any mention of Darwin.)?



It's an excellent example of not applying critical thinking skills. Your implied conclusion was that the fuzziness of some answers provided by science seem counterintuitive, thus science is unreliable. That is not a conclusion that would be reached by a critical thinker, because the implications do not have any bearing on the reliability of science.

Also, the answer is, it depends on your reference point. What is the ball dropping 'relative to'? Without a reference frame, it's nonsensical. The intuitive part comes into play when you consider that most people inherently assume themselves to be the reference point.



So by assuming the author to be authentic, we can also say it's a fact that he's the author? My critical thinking skills tell me he is the 'assumed' author. Why do we disagree? You were given no additional information besides that the chain of custody wasn't broken. Did he tell you he wrote it? Did you have the handwriting analyzed? Did he sign his name? These things matter in a critical examination, they are details that cannot be glossed over. Perhaps we would only have to satisfy one of the other conditions to be confident enough to say he is in fact the author. But that information wasn't given, we do not know if any other conditions were satisfied. The proper stance is not going from assumption to certainty! The proper stance is agnosticism until we get a bit more information!

Here is another way to think of it: Let's say the guy gave you the diary, then you were forced to answer "yes", "I don't know" or "no" with respect to him being the author in fact. The only information you have are what the words on this page tell you. Such a baseline for determining the correct process(or seeing it clearly) is necessary before adding the variables that surround the bible.

But that wasn't my question. My question is, if that diary contained information of extraordinary events, would you simply accept them as true? What additional evidence would you need to believe with certainty that the man made a garden grow by urinating on it?



Post a very summarized rundown of the Israel 1948 prophecy using your own words, not within a quote. Run the math yourself to see that the numbers are correct, and give your reasoning for including the various numbers. I'd already done this in another thread and displayed the mistake to you. It's your turn.

With respect to my beliefs I have indicated that I will discuss them in the context of a full discussion of the Bible.





Which is a total copout.





pay attention, we were discussing Wright omitting important things from TEoG.
Now, try again.





No, my point was not the science yields fuzzy answers, my point was that your framed a fuzzy question.



Given the incompleteness of your question my answers were and are correct.





Because under the FRS one does not deal with an assumption. One examines the evidence and then arrives at a conclusion. In the case where an ancient document is found where it is reasonable for it to be, the authorship is determined to be as represented unless there is a compelling reason to question it. Your concluding sentence is incorrect.



What 'guy'? I think you are losing it. The above paragraph is little more than babble. If you are getting at the authenticity of the Bible, your scenario is not even close to the circumstances surrounding it. Further we have litigated that question to the point of impasse, however if you wish to reopen the discussion I am happy to return to that thread and allow you to go first.



does the diary contain specific information and eyewitness testimony from at least twelve people who are known to me?





This has already been done and the math is correct.

Point proven. Will the context alter the meaning of the words, or provide substantial evidence to support the claims within Genesis?



Your stance is different? Please explain.



There is no reason to reference Darwin's original essay to understand evolution. That's the answer to your question. Why should I try again? You were the one trying to prove a point by asking me. What is your point?



Were each of the books of the bible found in the the houses of the people who supposedly wrote them, in their handwriting? You're hopelessly biased here, to the point where a critical analysis is impossible. Not only that, but the intent of the ancient document rule in the FRE is clear. It is meant to make accessible legal documents, wills, deeds, etc for the court to consider in trial. The intent has nothing to do with written testimonials. This is evidenced by the fact that many states have a similar rule, but limit the documents to certain kinds, such as dispositive instruments(which would exclude the bible).

Additionally, submittal of such evidence says nothing about the truth of it's contents. The rule is in place to prevent people from having the documents dismissed as hearsay. It is an exception to hearsay, because how else would you enter old deeds/wills/etc. into court if all associated persons to the document were indisposed? You aren't thinking critically here. You need to entertain such thoughts, otherwise these conversations will be endless as I supply them to you.



Correct. If we were talking about the bible, you wouldn't have access to the written originals. The only thing you'd have access to is a modified form where many or most originals are lost, and the lack of transparency in the chain of custody means we cannot rule out ad hoc alterations.



Known to you in which way? Twelve people who you have never met, sure. Additionally, the diary is a post-hoc compilation, where the chain of custody is unknown. Given these new facts, would you believe the man made a garden grow overnight by urinating on it?

That one is too easy, the answer is of course no. But let's say the twelve people each handed you individual written testimonials in their handwriting with perfectly corresponding facts and descriptions of events. The chain of custody is unquestionable and the handwriting was completely analyzed to meet each of these people. All 12 are honest people whom you trust to tell the truth no matter what. In this situation, would you believe the man made the garden grow overnight by urinating on it, as stated in each of the 12 journals? Think critically now.



If you multiply any number by the 360 day hebrew calendar, it will no longer match up a real year. Yes, there is such a thing as an objective length of time for a year of Earth time. The Hebrew calendar was used with this understanding, and leap months had to be added to accurately reflect a true year. These leap months were added consistently to ensure Torah celebration dates aligned with the right time of year. Just as we calculate backwards and forwards on our Gregorian calendar while adding each and every leap year, the length of time would no longer properly be defined as a "year" otherwise. There is no reason to exclude the appropriate leap months from the calculation.

This isn't an opening to once again indict Wright for his supposed transgressions. It's not about being right in any particular case, but just being willing or able to look critically at a thing. Can you say to us that you are willing to do that with regard to the Bible?