science4ever

I don't think you will like my naive example from my own life.

But it may be a rather close example of believing in something one know are not so.

I where very shy towards girl when me a teen. When I got 20 I was fed up with

being so lonely and decided to try to get together with a girl. None thought me

to be the most handsome or sexy guy so I got turned down again and again. So

the years went by and no good luck. so I decided to believe that I could make it

by pretending to be not shy and not sexy and not handsome and not likeable.

I pretended to be the opposite of what was true. I acted as if I where sexy

and likeable and at first it did not work at all. They saw through it and even told me

that it looked ridiculous when I pretended to be something that I obvisouly was not.

I did not give up. I tried every day to find somebody that accepted that I was sexy

and worthy to get to know. and after some 3 years of daily fruitless attempts it worked

it did not work each time and not even ten percent it worked only at some one in 300 attempts.

So after three fruitless years then for some two years I find at least a handful of girls

that did not mind me pretending. they accepted me as I where the great pretender.

Big surprise but they did not care that I pretended. I where still not sexy at all

and still shy inside me but tried my best to not show that outward. I pretended to have not shyness.

But after some 13 years of being together with two girls that I loved and lived with

one of their best friends told my latest love that she thought that I where not worthy

of being with my GF that I where just pretending and really a shy childish guy worth nothing.

And she believed in her new female friend and wanted us to part and not be together.

That almost killed me. Sure I had new all the time I where shy and worthless

but not that where that hopelessly worthless that she did not want me anymore.

So I where close to suicide and have struggled since then to survive and barely do survive.

So one can believe in something even if one know it are not so. One just have to act on it

and after some year the body get so used to pretending that it forget about it and one

only get conscious of it when it fail due to some accident of getting aware of it.

Cognitive dissonance may be a good explanation for it. Or personal confirmation bias.

just several hundred feet away and not higher than the tree tops ? Depends on what kind of tree?

would that be just 200 feet away that would be 60 meter or so. that is very close but being an orb

they are not bigger than a Tennis Ball so not much of a UFO is it? They could have retold it with

better details and why don't they set up the mobile in a steady way to make a good picture?

I trust it is kids playing with homebuild quadrocopters their electric motors can be rather silent.

Thanks for the link to social proof idea I think this one may have some importance too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_Social_Influence

Experiments that Soloman Ash did on conformity

and experiments by Stanley Milgram and Zimbardo made and

all these and many others refer to factors that could be involved

in how religions works from a functional perspective

while atheists often concentrate on the lack of belief in claims

made by the religious tradition. Ontology and such. Does God exist.

My personal take is that one of the most important factor is feeling righteous

and religion seems to have that built in. With God on your side you sure are righteous

and the signalling theory display required makes religion as Us vs Them as they are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Religion_as_a_costly_signal

 

All religions may involve costly and elaborate rituals, performed publicly, to demonstrate loyalty to the religious group.

Almost all behavior within religion looks incredibly ridiculous to those that have a lack of such belief.

Believers are ridiculed as delusional and insane and if you are a "New Atheist" you are almost bound

to ridicule them or else seen as an accommodationist and that is even more ridiculous than being a believer.

Sure I can be wrong but the feeling of being righteous and accepting to display costly signals seems to be important.

As I get it the term supernatural as a word are a very late comer.

Religion has been with us some 4 thousands of years or much more

but the term supernatural maybe at most since the middle age

and are some philosophical invention to be used in debates?

AFAIK there are natural science and natural history and natural religion

and the supernatural is a kind of construct that is rhetoric .There is no evidence

for that there exist anything like what the term refers to is there?

I bought a book that Bertrand Russell had been Editor to. The history of Western Philosophy

or similar name. I looked up Naturalism in the index and it was nowhere to be found.

I find that odd. I thought it existed since the old Greeks Atomists or something.

These terms naturalism and supernaturalism is just words they only exist for philosophers.

What Knownothing wrote in another thread seems to be rather true.

Without God, people need true reasons to be satisfied, and in many cases

they will never find them without just making up their own secular superstitions.

 

For to make a superstition to be effective it has to appear real.

Seems to work for the believers but fail for us atheists.

The believer see God as very real while an atheist lack belief in God.

So as Knownothing writes. An atheist would need "true reasons to be satisfied"

and would bark loud if one gave them something they know are not true or real.

So it is a kind of Catch 22. You are damned if you lie about it and damned if you tell the truth?

One would need to give the atheist a myth that is of such high value

that it does not matter that it is a myth that just pretend to be real.

A kind of secular art form like music or movies or similar?

music often get's very close to appear real.

But if one ask the musician they often admit

that when private they play totally other music

and what they do on stage is just a faked thing.

They really don't like what they play it is a job they do.

So their fans love it despite it is lie a kind of myth.

AFAIK Bob Dylan got so angry on his fans wanting him

to play something he was fed up with that he refused

and turned his back to them and they booed him and

he left for to never come back many times.

He refused to fake it for their sake but they wanted the fake too.

Even knowing he would have to fake it they loved those old songs

so much that they wanted him to pretend he sang it with joy.

Is it not odd? They valued these songs so much

that they rather force him to fake it then to accept

that he hated to sing those songs that he rather left the room.

Know nothing what you wrote sounds very true to me

 

Without God, people need true reasons to be satisfied,

and in many cases they will never find them without just making up

their own secular superstitions.

And such sure exists. Aliens that come in big Mothership and will rescue the belivers.

Ancient Aliens that built the old civilisations and such myths and political conspiracy

superstitiouns like lizzard people that run this world behind scene using our leaders like puppets.

So us humans at least some of us are very vulnerable to wild ideas. Sad is it not.

The bad thing about placebo is that it gives false hope of being a real cure.

so why does not us secular set up a good reliable placebo for those that there are no real cure?

Why let the criminal get all the money on false hopes.

Words like supernatural is a kind of code word? A word that points out expertize

Science is not supposed to be able to say anything reliable about the supernatural.

the word makes it taboo for scientists to deal with it. Priests and Paranormal

and alternative Medicine and New Agers and maybe MythBusters are seen as the experts?

Science can only deal with what is natural. "Natural Science" What can be measured.

So the supernatural is a kind of social tool for saying that you need other experts.

A ghost buster or a medium or channeler or a priest or pastor or a wicca person or ...

They have tried to carve or digged into a niche where they can be left alone from criticism

due to how they define their supernatural myth it either belong to a known religious tradition

and then people react with categorizing. Baptistis do such things I am this church and it is not

in our tradition. A kind of division of labor. They try to find their niche. A kind of market strategy.

so supernatural becomes a "noa" word. A No No for science. we do science we don't do Gods.

SJGould is famous for his support that it was two different things. Science deal with measurable things

and religion with the non-measurables. New Atheism wanted to point out it was non-compatible instead.

So it was a kind of cultural war going on.

Consciousness is the cause of existence.

What kind of definition do you have for that consciousness?

The self consciousness that the mirror experiment is solved

by very few animal. Most animal fail to recognize that they

see themselves in the mirror in front of themselves.

You seems to refer to something other that what we usually refer to as human self consciousness.

Some that have ASD fail to know how they come through in the minds of others

or they claim they know that but don't care. that is another aspect of being aware

that makes the whole notion of consciousness not so clear cut.

So give me the defintion of what you talk about.

Doesn's seem that we have that wood plancks here locally.

They are double size so I got curious on what if I make it

oval/eliptic diameter instead of round circle so it is say 22mm

in height but 35 or 40 in width? that way one could get same

air volume area and that way have strong walls and same

aucoustic properties?

Would that maybe work out well?

Yes sorry I most likely missremembered

Lynn Margulis. sounds more likely then.

I do apology for misleading those who

did not know about Lynn Margulis.

I am most likely not logical enough to get it

but to me personally it is a great mystery

that something exist at all.

How am I suppose to find that even likely?

I refer to existence as such. Sure now we exists

but that the fluctuations that created the Big Bang

why did there exist anything at all in the first place.

I mean is that not a great mystery? where do I go wrong logically?

My poor logic tells me that there is no reason for something to exist.

Now I don't believe in "creation" because that only place the question

further away. Who "created" the Creator and so on Creators all the way down.

I trust that it is most likely that all gods are fictional myths

but that some myths has the claim that their God is real

as one of the features of that particular God.

Because some or many of the believers really need a real God.

If their religious tradition would only have mythic gods then

they would lose faith in it. God has to be real they say and

why would they then not include a myth that say their God is real?

Seems very likely to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology

 

In the society in which it is told, a myth is usually regarded as a true account of the remote past.

Fictions are not exactly myths because most fiction do admit it is fiction

while myth often claim it has something real that it refers to metaphorically.

Here is a philosophers that ask if it is possible

to believe in something that one know is not true?

 

The question I then ask is: might there be a fiction

in which we could still nonetheless believe?

That’s what I call a “supreme fiction,” ...

a fiction that we know to be a fiction ...

but in which we nonetheless believe

From an interview with Simon Critchley. link here

http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/atheologies/6246/simon_critchley__atheist_religious_thinker_on_utopia___the_fiction_of_faith/

My thread is about ths things idea that if one know

that God is a fictional myth can one still decide on

that one want to believe in it and somehhow make

that happen consciously without feeling that one fake faith?

TED talk has a two hour talk with Lawrence Krauss

and he try to answer something very close

How can somethign come out of nothing?

He has also written a book about his views.

Not exactly what you ask Why questions tend to be philosophy

and what can they know about such things? I trust physics more than phil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_Cosmides

she had an idea that where very similar. she named it Gaia.

She thought that it was basically self regulating

But I have no good link to her detailed views.

I did not get motivaed enough to trust it to be a good model.

I like your TLDR but I wonder about this. Do we have any scienctific research

on how this work out in practice. I wanted to become a believer since 1983

but fail to trick me into the delusion. I find it too far out and not possible to support.

But I know I can be in delusion by pure accidental habit. When I where ten years old

I started to trust all those that reported about UFOs but that was maybe a sign of

my gullibility I did find it too unlikely that all of them lied. Fortunately I happen to read

a book by Jaques Vallee that pointed out that humans seems to have these kind of expereinces

for as long as we have written history so it is a common human delusion. there are no Aliens

it is all in the head of those that retell their experience.

so based on your take on delusion. Is the following reasonable idea?

Can one decied to believe in something one know is not true?

Is the belief of a god important? does it really matter if a person believes in a higher power or not? How does that belief impact our world? Why should people debate whether or not god exists, can't it be a simple case of 'live and let live'?

The believers tend to act based on their belief so that makes such faith important

because of the impact on all others living in same society as the believers.

they vote on politicians that seems to be closer to their religious views.

Such have effect on abortion and other things like blasphemy laws.

People debate it because it directly affect their personal life.

What I ask is this: Are there two kinds of believers?

And can one somehow measure this using science

Maybe using those fMRI scans that are so popular?

I also ask why these two different kind of believers

need God to be something real.

Why can they not accept that God is a cultural social psychological idea

that is a kind of human tool. Humans are tool makers and God is one such tool?

I am not good at finding good words for these questions

but I only trust that science can answer them so that is why I am here.

I care about Moderators view so I leave this thread.

I don't trust I know how to be on topic based on OP

No big deal.

I have not been able to ask the question in a concise way.

 

I mean can one look with fMRI scanner and see what lights up in the true believer
when they think God is really real. And if other areas light up in the God as myth believer
thinking that God is a word referring beyond the concept to something not expressable?

Could these two kind of believer belong to different personality types?

So my question is maybe too direct or specific about using fMRI

so suppose I retrack to this

"Could these two kind of believer belong to different personality types?"

I claim there are atleast two types of believers. literal Fundamentalists

that read the text to say what it say and then the believers that read it

seeing the text metaphorically to be like a story pointing to the real but unknown God?

So seen from atheism not much difference

but to the first category they see the mythers as atheists.

so it does not help the mythers they say myth refer to the real.

My interest is are these two belonging to two difference type of personalities.

and

and why does God has to be real? Okay Einstein is very real.

Some of those living today has even met him.

but compare with George Orwell who is a famous author of "1984" book

he did never exist but the name refers to another guy that actually

wrote the book but used a pseudonym for some reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

 

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),

known by his pen name George Orwell,

was an English novelist and journalist.

So they use "pen name" as an explanation for why he used another name.

Could he maybe have realized the Press would chase him like Celebs today

not being able to get out without paparazzi chasing them all over the place.

Maybe too different ways to exist either using real name of "pen name".

so applied to God would be the myth about God and what the myth really refers to.

The fundies then trust that the Myth is the real God and the Mythers realize

that it is Eric Arthur Blair who just used a pen name like George Orwell.

Without over explaining it;

 

I think our need and belief in a god might stem from our earliest childhood where our nuerons have limited or no structure yet. I purpose that the foundation of all our neurological circuits are built from this original "god" circuit that we create from the perception of our parents, the all loving, knowing and powerful being.

 

When we first open our eyes our neurological structure has no connections at all, by perceiving this all loving, knowing and powerful force we therefor build our first structure on this perception.

 

Any ideas?

When I trust that the OP meant it on a more everyday reasoning level then I find it very likely to be true.

Sure it is not a scientific theory or worked out hypothesis or anything on an academic level but it was not meant to be?

Sure one can say he start with too young kids too early. When this really happen only science can answer.

Paul Bloom when he wrote his book that suggests that we are born as dualists

is close to something like what OP suggests.

here is his latest book http://bigthink.com/Picture-This/essential-reading-paul-bloom-on-how-pleasure-works

that one takes it one step further from Dualism to Essentialism. Both can help humans to intuitively see Agents

in things with no agent like the Universe or spirits that survive death. Sure the details are often learned

but the reasoning can have been dormant and get easily triggered.

I agree that one can criticize detail in the OP text but seen generously it is right on the money.

When I read OP as I guess he wanted to be read it makes sense to me.

what is wrong with his reasoning in your opinion?

I did buy the book when it got published as soft cover pocket.

I trust that I read it .Being an atheist I am used to his style

so did not react as strong as the OP did.

My problem is more with this idea that is common for both

believers and disbelievers. A god that is a delusion is not a real god.

AFIK both theist and atheist looks down upon such gods. Dawking as Agnostic atheist

does look down upon made up gods and the True Believers also look down upon made up gods.

The True Believer assert that their God is very alive and real and not a God made up by humans.

That is even in the Bible that the made up gods are false gods.

So both theist and athist agree upon that a God has to be real

or else that God is a false god and thus no god to trust at all.

I am neither theist nor atheist because I want to have faith in a human made God.

to me that would be the most honest and true to reality one can act. To tell it like it is.

"I made up this God myself and that is why my God is believable and true

because I made it to be true to me for my needs and my purpose.

Yes I know it sound totally far out but how else to do it?

If there are no gods and one need at least one god

then one have to build God as good as one can.

Cornetto Zink is a lip vibrating instrument blown almost identical to Trumpet

but with a conical instead of cylindrical bore for to allow one to have both the lower

the overblown higher register in tune and to use just plain fingerholes with no mechanics.

So it is seen as a very primitive instrument now not easily integrated in modern music.

To me it would be a huge improvement over the Cowhorn and Goathorn used

on Folkmusic which is my main interest. these instrument play only in lowest register

and don't make use of overblowing.

 

There is also the resonator approach as in the Cor Anglais.

 

The name “English Horn” is a translation of the French cor anglais which is probably a corruption of cor anglé, meaning “angled horn”, referring to an early form of the instrument which was bent in the middle at an angle. from here http://www.organstops.org/e/englishhorn.html

Yes the exponential seems to have been known when they did

the Cornettos/Zink too the tapering is not linear but

I have to start with something that is at least close to ideal

Some say that the first bore to the thumbhole is almost cylindrical

and then it is conical. Others say one need to do two such with different tapering

after the other so they should have different climb for to get the overbklown right.

I will be happy if I get an instrument that at least sound each note even if a bit false

it is just a proof of concept that I make one for to later maybe buy a real one?

studiot yes that explains why a sax or Tuba has such wide horns.

And why the instrument that I will try is named a "muted" horn?

Itlack that loudspeaker that one are so used to see on brass instruments .