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Post by william on May 21, 2005 17:32:50 GMT -5
heres an interesting explanation/theory why such irrational religious beliefs as theists have ,can be, or were at some time,..actualy a good thing.. www.atheists.org/Atheism/music.htmlOk I read about half and saw some interesting speculation that might make for an interesting thread, but can you point out what part is relevent to this thread?
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Post by william on May 21, 2005 17:42:43 GMT -5
williamI wasn't talking about lieing. I was talking about them creatively filling in details about their supposed visions. Human perception and memory has been shown to be very subjective and contextual. People can convince themselves of things that simply aren't true relatively easily. So without some way to actively and independently test claims, second hand accounts or accounts about what a person "feels" are somewhat worthless to all but the person who is doing the feeling. williamI think that you are probably assigning an unreasonably low probability to charasmatics attending a Baptist church. actually that is a big debate going on in our church right now, many want to drop "baptist" from the name. to creativly fill in details or to embelish would be liing.
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Post by droskey on May 22, 2005 13:29:44 GMT -5
william I think that you are being overly simplistic. If one fully believes that he is telling the truth, then he is not lieing. However, he might not actually be telling the truth. There are plenty of examples of people being very subjective about details that they remember.
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Post by Dragon*of*Heaven on May 22, 2005 22:18:16 GMT -5
I have my own idea as to why people choose religon or become athistic. It is in ones own personality and ability to accept what they see. For instance have you ever been confronted with some one spouting an illogical statement, and no matter what proven evidence you gave them they refused to belive it? Instead of looking at it with a responcible rational mind, the person returns to hideing behind their safty blanket of faith so they dont have to look at the possibility? For example like God is among the clouds and if you went up there you could see him. That kind of statement (Those of us who know our history know that this was a commen belife before orvile and willber wright.) Now I could take this person up there now and show them but no matter what I do they will not belive it.
In short i dont belive that this is cuased by some gene, chemical imbalence, or predisposition. I think that it is simply a persons mind chooesing to stay ignorant of possiblility rather than shake their "individual reality".
Now with out reading any thing else I have ever posted one could say that I have a rather cold out look on theists. However I think that it is ok to want to hold on to something that makes us feel safe. After all if any of us felt unsure about some thing and we could be made to feel safe would we not want it? That for the theists is my defence.
Now that said, Squid though the studys you qoted are interesting and by no means to be scoffed at or just layed aside you have already stated that they are inconclusive at best and I think that that is a good way to put it. Lets face it put into a certain context it could be desined to show my idea as being correct. Example you have two people one person who choses religion to prove his existance or outlook on reality and another person who chooses athism. Now because the theist put every thing on God and dosent think about it as much he wont have the same neural activitys as an athist.
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Post by solidsquid on May 23, 2005 11:42:18 GMT -5
I wasn't talking about lieing. I was talking about them creatively filling in details about their supposed visions. Yes, it's called confabulation.
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Post by droskey on May 23, 2005 11:57:10 GMT -5
solidsquid Thanks, squid.
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Post by solidsquid on May 25, 2005 12:26:05 GMT -5
No problemo.
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Post by william on Jun 1, 2005 12:33:09 GMT -5
so we can not trust our own observations let alone those of others. therefor we cant really know anything, so science is dead! sorry squid! No wait! we could use this confabulation thing to our advantage. when ever we hear of someones expierience (or our own for that matter) that contradicts our preffered paradime. we can dismiss it as confabulation. and when its all said and done we will all believe what we want to believe. that gives me an Idea for a new thread.
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Post by solidsquid on Jun 1, 2005 18:40:45 GMT -5
Confabulation isn't something that takes place all the time on a scale that makes it something to be concerned about. Confabulation is a filling in of gaps in memory which that person comes to believe is true. For instance, a while back with the beltway sniper thing people "remembered" seeing a white van...there was no white van. In other situations such as attacks on a person such as a mugging and such there may be items remembered that weren't there. This is usually can be the fault of the police interviewing process in which they may lead the person and actually contribute to the confabulation by suggestions - a large problem in eye witness testimony.
Science on the other hand, has methods devised to keep measurements et cetera from such creative fillings. Quantative research is fairly safe from this, qualatative is not and must take more precautions to keep such things from occurring.
Confabulation merely shows that our memories are not perfect.
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Post by william on Jun 2, 2005 1:45:40 GMT -5
but wouldnt you agree, that if one of those details makes an ordinary event into an extrodinary event that detail would not have been added inocently without thought. the person would have to realise they were lieing. I mean if your friend tells you about the girl he scored with last night he might actualy believe that she was better looking than she really was.(weve all been there right?) but when he throughs in that it was a set of triplet contortionists that just finished a photo shoot for playboy? come on hes either a lier or you really should hang out with him more often. (if your into that sort of thing)
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Post by solidsquid on Jun 2, 2005 10:57:10 GMT -5
but wouldnt you agree, that if one of those details makes an ordinary event into an extrodinary event that detail would not have been added inocently without thought. the person would have to realise they were lieing. I mean if your friend tells you about the girl he scored with last night he might actualy believe that she was better looking than she really was.(weve all been there right?) but when he throughs in that it was a set of triplet contortionists that just finished a photo shoot for playboy? come on hes either a lier or you really should hang out with him more often. (if your into that sort of thing) Confabulation really makes no distinction in some magnitude scale of the false items. It is simply filled in gaps in which the person believes is true. However, if this happens repeatedly it can indicate a pathology.
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Post by william on Jun 2, 2005 14:28:38 GMT -5
but wouldnt you agree, that if one of those details makes an ordinary event into an extrodinary event that detail would not have been added inocently without thought. the person would have to realise they were lieing. I mean if your friend tells you about the girl he scored with last night he might actualy believe that she was better looking than she really was.(weve all been there right?) but when he throughs in that it was a set of triplet contortionists that just finished a photo shoot for playboy? come on hes either a lier or you really should hang out with him more often. (if your into that sort of thing) Confabulation really makes no distinction in some magnitude scale of the false items. It is simply filled in gaps in which the person believes is true. However, if this happens repeatedly it can indicate a pathology. yes it fills in the details that the person DOESNT remember. but isnt it fair to asume that we dont tend to forget extraordinary events and if our mind was to fill in details wouldnt it pull from a list of everyday details. example, cop asks what was the perpatrater waring, the witness confabulates, answer jeans and a teashirt, not a tootoo and ballet shoes with a big sumbrero.
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Post by solidsquid on Jun 2, 2005 18:13:02 GMT -5
It's still possible, depends on the person. Is it likely? Probably not, possible? Yep. A confabulation may be accentuated by something else such as a disorder. For instace, where I used to work a woman claimed that someone stole her wallet which contained about $90. She actually lost the wallet during a manic phase of her depression cycle (bipolar disorder), she didn't remember where she left it, confabulation took over and she believed she put it in a locker and one of the other clients took it, the dollar value and contents tended to get more and more valuable as the story went on, finally ending up being $400, plane tickets and her birth certificate...all of which were not there nor was there ever that amount of money.
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Post by william on Jun 3, 2005 1:28:53 GMT -5
that sounds more like another disorder, insurencscamulation!
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