She sees things that don't exist.

[Memeticemetic]

Belief, in my understanding, is an obligate condition based on facts and logical argument.

Could you elaborate more about this? It seems you are limiting the definition of belief to those beliefs attained through scientific understanding. Is that right? Belief is normally defined as a hypothesis which is accepted as true before the acquisition of valid supporting evidence, and sometimes despite the presence of contradictory evidence.

Belief, more broadly and inclusively defined, is simply any proposition accepted as true. I was trying to express that I, personally, don't understand how people choose beliefs. For me, the only way to accept a proposition as true is to have evidence supporting it. If countervailing evidence comes to light, I have no choice but to change my beliefs, whether I'm inclined to or not. Your definition is more leaning more toward the common definition of faith, the definition I use is closer to that of knowledge. So I suppose what I'm saying, in essence, is, "how the hell do people have faith?" It really is one of those things people do that I just don't understand. And every answer I get when I ask the faithful is essentially a shrug and a reply something like, "Well, ya just gotta have it."

 

[borrofburi]

The reason why I am a Wiccan is cause I want to be and I want to believe in it.

I do not mean to sound rude, but I have a hard time understanding this. A long time ago I realized that I cared more about truth than anything else... But I have since met those who have explicitly recognized and stated that they will believe what they believe regardless of the truth.

Is that your position? Do you care about whether what you believe is actually a part of reality? Does the truth matter to you?

 

[Laurens]

Show her the documentary I linked in this topic: http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6912

It talks about how activity in the temporal lobes of the brain can create sensed presences, delusions and hallucinations.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Belief, more broadly and inclusively defined, is simply any proposition accepted as true. I was trying to express that I, personally, don't understand how people choose beliefs. For me, the only way to accept a proposition as true is to have evidence supporting it. If countervailing evidence comes to light, I have no choice but to change my beliefs, whether I'm inclined to or not. Your definition is more leaning more toward the common definition of faith, the definition I use is closer to that of knowledge. So I suppose what I'm saying, in essence, is, "how the hell do people have faith?" It really is one of those things people do that I just don't understand. And every answer I get when I ask the faithful is essentially a shrug and a reply something like, "Well, ya just gotta have it."

So basically I say "I don't believe in anything, I only accept the truth as shown by evidence." and you say "I believe in only that which is supported by evidence." while we both mean the same thing.

Yea, usually when I hear the word belief in a supernatural or religious discussion, I tend to take it to mean faith, which is belief in the absence of supporting evidence and/or presence of contradictory evidence. Which is why I say "I don't believe in anything." when people ask me "What do you believe in?"

Of course, there are circumstances where one could use the word belief in a very different sense. Like saying "I believe it's going to rain" when you see dark clouds in the sky. I tend to avoid it by replacing the word believe with think (I think it's going to rain.).

To Laurens: Amazing stuff.

 

[Darkangel]

I do not mean to sound rude, but I have a hard time understanding this. A long time ago I realized that I cared more about truth than anything else... But I have since met those who have explicitly recognized and stated that they will believe what they believe regardless of the truth.

Is that your position? Do you care about whether what you believe is actually a part of reality? Does the truth matter to you?

I do not care if what I believe is just part of reality or if the truth matters to me. I understand that what I see or belief could not be real but no one knows the truth for sure... I see what I see and I can't help it, as long as I'm not being another Muhammad, forcing one's thoughts and ideas into another person is enough for me.

I just like to be myself.

There was never a day I go by without doubting the things I see and believe, but as I say... I choose to believe in Wicca because I want to...

I do however know that religion is man-made. But I can't grasp the whole God not existing thing... Somewhere, somehow, I believe God exist.

 

[impiku]

She's probably on crack. Just sayin'.

 

[Demojen]

I do not care if what I believe is just part of reality or if the truth matters to me. I understand that what I see or belief could not be real but no one knows the truth for sure... I see what I see and I can't help it, as long as I'm not being another Muhammad, forcing one's thoughts and ideas into another person is enough for me.

If I told you that you could help it, would you believe me?

You've brain washed yourself into a corner.
The very first step to resolving a problem is acknowledging that you have one. The very fact you do not care speaks more about your condition than you know. Delusions have a way of destroying the most beautiful of minds.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/

I don't want you to feel attacked. I know that you do. Your life is probably full of many things you'd love to hold onto and many things you'd love to let go. These things can become a part of who we are. Losing them invokes a dramatic change in our life. Humans hate change, but change is what we are.

The only human nature is change. I used to hear voices. To this day, I can have a conversation with myself, disagree with myself and still resolve my indifference within me, but I've come to understand after researching neurosciences and brain function, that I'm not weird. Every one has a little voice in their head. Some people have more than one.

Your brain is at any given moment in time translating information and reinterpreting information for redistribution throughout the neural network that touches every part of your body. My auditory processing disorder is the result of my brain re-interpreting information as it struggles to interpret existing sounds due to head trauma at a young age.

So don't ever feel you are alone or that the world is full of normal people. Our plasticity and growth amount to a planet of shifting norms.

 

[Grains]

TBH you see a lot of cool shit on DMT, not discluding amorphous machine elves giving away presents and osmosing into you in the dome of DMT.

Suck my fat mushroom dick, creton.

 

[Grains]

These are just rumors of course. I could be wrong. Some people can't handle psychadelics and I don't want to find out the hard way that I'm one of them.

 

[havanacat]

I don't know how to make sense of it. She sees things like fairies. She told me that a long time ago, she read about fairies in some book. At first, it sounded ridiculous to her, but later she saw fairies with her own eyes (or so she says) and then believed in the existence of fairies.

Fairies are just one of the several things that she sees with her eyes. And then she sees things more clearly under the influence of alcohol or similar inhibitors. She has even claimed that she prefers to consume alcohol because (besides other reasons) it enhances her ability to see things more clearly.

She also sees non-existent things more clearly after watching a horror movie which involves these non-existent things, like a movie about vampires and werewolves. When I watch such a movie, I only see it as an entertainment fiction and has no bearing on our actual world. Yet she could talk about the fictional beings in the movie as though they are real, and she claims that watching the movie heightens her "senses".

I have no idea how to make sense of all these and since her science education is very low compared to mine, I can't even get her interest to look at possible scientific explanations to all these "visions" of hers. But she's a walking encyclopedia of supernatural explanations to all these.

Perception is under the influence of brain stew chemicals all the time. Go without sleep for three days, become dehydrated, use mind altering drugs, you'll probably see them too.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Perception is under the influence of brain stew chemicals all the time. Go without sleep for three days, become dehydrated, use mind altering drugs, you'll probably see them too.

Actually I've gone without sleep for almost 3 days once, I don't drink that much water. It's only the drugs part I haven't done, although I drank a bit of alcohol (I don't like it).

And what's better is that she has not done any of these. She drinks quite a bit recently, but she's been seeing things way long before she ever touched alcohol. Shouldn't I be the one with better results?

 

[Nemesiah]

Perception is under the influence of brain stew chemicals all the time. Go without sleep for three days, become dehydrated, use mind altering drugs, you'll probably see them too.

Actually I've gone without sleep for almost 3 days once, I don't drink that much water. It's only the drugs part I haven't done, although I drank a bit of alcohol (I don't like it).

And what's better is that she has not done any of these. She drinks quite a bit recently, but she's been seeing things way long before she ever touched alcohol. Shouldn't I be the one with better results?

Maybe this has been asked, has she had a cat scan performed?

 

[Nelipot]

Maybe, just maybe, there are experiences which cannot be explained by reason. I don't have a particular stance on what's been said here but using truth as some sort of bulldozer is no more reasonable than holding to what some would describe as delusions.

 

[Laurens]

Maybe, just maybe, there are experiences which cannot be explained by reason. I don't have a particular stance on what's been said here but using truth as some sort of bulldozer is no more reasonable than holding to what some would describe as delusions.

I'd say that you're categorically wrong.

Even if she does actually see things that exist in some other dimension, and they aren't figments of her imagination - those things would still be explainable in a reasonable manner (obviously it would require evidence first though). In order for something not to be explicable by reason then surely it would have to somehow break the laws of logic?

Can something ever happen and not be explicable using reason? I don't think so personally.

 

[Nelipot]

No, all you can say is that you think I'm wrong. Until there's a way to prove perceptual experiences, there is no answer either way. Being dogmatic doesn't make you right.

 

[Laurens]

No, all you can say is that you think I'm wrong. Until there's a way to prove perceptual experiences, there is no answer either way. Being dogmatic doesn't make you right.

And retreating to the philosophical realm of absolute uncertainty about everything doesn't make you right either.

You said that there are some things that cannot be explained with reason.

My contention with this is that, even if this person really saw inter-dimensional beings from the other side of the galaxy there would be some reasonable explanation for it. That explanation would be: Beings from such and such a planet travelled through an inter-dimensional tunnel to visit such and such a person.

If there was lots of evidence that this did happen then it would be a reasonable explanation.

My point is not 'weird things definitely cannot happen', rather that if they can happen they must be somehow explicable (using reason) otherwise they couldn't happen.

You're saying that some things can happen in the universe that are completely inexplicable through reason. My contention is that nothing could happen in this universe without an explanation, even if we don't know what it is. In other words everything can be explained with reason, even if we don't know the explanation yet.

 

[Nelipot]

I'm not trying to be right; there is simply not enough information here but in the absence of that information I'm not prepared to disrespect someone else's experiences.

 

[Laurens]

I'm not trying to be right; there is simply not enough information here but in the absence of that information I'm not prepared to disrespect someone else's experiences.

I'm just pointing out that your statement that some things cannot be explained by reason, is like saying that 'some things happen with no explanation'. I'm not making any judgement about the nature of the experiences of the girl in the OP, I'm just saying that whatever it is must have an explanation therefore it can be explained using reason.

 

[australopithecus]

No, all you can say is that you think I'm wrong. Until there's a way to prove perceptual experiences, there is no answer either way. Being dogmatic doesn't make you right.

So should we shrug our shoulders at every currently unfalsifiable position? Because if that's the case then it's open season for every crackpot and bullshit peddler.

 

[Nelipot]

No, you can apply the filter of common sense and if that makes you disagree with another's point of view, still recognise their right to have it. Also recognise that not everyone is selling anything and only engage, should you choose, with those that are.