Why am I delusional?

[tuxbox]

I must first apologize in advance because what I am about to say will sound offensive and I really do not mean to insult you and I hope you can something out of this, but I just don't have another way to put his.
From just reading the title I would agree with you that it is not fair to paint all theists as delusional, I can understand how people can hold false beliefs (even though I would forward that they are unjustified). However you did not helped your case one bit and in fact you have proven that you are delusional yourself, and I quote:

I will start with my experiences of what some would call ghosts. I have lived in two places where I have witnessed this phenomenon. If I were the only one who had witnessed these events, then I could safely dismiss them as hallucinations, but how do several people at different times hallucinate the same damn thing? Because of these experiences I came to the conclusion that it is possible for there to be an after life of some kind.

Ghosts simply do not exist, they are figment of your imagination. Even you yourself recognize that it maybe hallucinations had it not also happen to other people. I don't think their hallucinations (rather something else much simpler), but your assessment that they are not hallucinations based on popular experience is just wrong, you don't even know what triggered those hallucinations and as far as you are concerned people that live with you work very similar to you and are under the same environmental stimulus as you which makes them more likely to be under the same hallucination as you than anyone else. I would even suggest that fact that has happened in more than one place means that it is following you and has nothing to do with the place, because the problem is you, it always has been in your head.
But as I said I don't think they are hallucinations it something much simpler than that, either because you were influenced by TV or by the micro culture surrounding your immediate family and friends you have come to believe that there could be such a things as ghosts. People around you are telling that they had quite lively and extraordinary experiences, why would they be lying to you? (they don't think they are lying to you), from your perspective Ghosts could be just as real as you and me.
As an example it maybe that one night you hear the boards of your floor screech when the wood gives away to the nail as it contracts to a colder night, "what was that?" "Things that are still don't make noises on their own" (they do but you don't know that), your innate fear of things lurking in the dark kicks in (inherited from your ancestors hunted in the dark), "it maybe a ghost" (in your mind they exist) you start having an adrenaline rush and your survival mechanisms kick in and in doubt it just goes ahead and it assumes that it is indeed a "ghost" (because you rather take action than not do anything and be wrong) and it convinces you that it is, your senses heighten but all that does is to amplify the noise you are taking in as you are desperately trying to find for the ghost (and because of the nature of noise you will find patterns that match, reinforcing the idea, increasing your paranoia). And before you know it (literally) in your head the ghost has become real to you where there is none. If you had seen a movie about demonic possession perhaps you would have seen the devil himself instead of ghosts.
This event will come to pass but others will follow it, a very lively dream about your fears that you cannot quite tell if it was real or not as you are trying to gather your wits as you are waking up, some other vague experiences shared with other people under the same delusions and as they retell they stories they get reinforced (after all you were there with them when it happened, I didn't see it exactly as they are telling it but it all happened so fast that I must have missed it, I was there to so it must have happened, it did happened). And as experience accumulate one after the other you get more and more convinced of ghosts despite the fact that there weren't any, they become real to you. You will tell to your experience to the next generation, you do not think you are lying after all you remember it so vividly that it did happen, and the people listening to you will think "he must be telling the truth, why would be lying? It doesn't look like he is lying", but that won't change the fact that none of it was real.
You have deceived yourself, it was all just an illusion, a self-inflicted illusion. You have come to believe in God because of it, you have changed your life for this illusion. This is the very embodiment of being deluded.
I don't think you are crazy and you are otherwise a very rational person, you don't have more flaws than anyone else, it just happened that the circumstances conspired to give you a very wrong perspective of the world and you shouldn't be ashamed because of that.
As for the other argument "Look at this amazing thing that I can't possibly imagine how could it have come about therefore GOD DONE IT!" is a very old argument from ignorance, it has been addressed countless times in this forum and if you had been here long enough you would be very familiar with it (because it pops up everywhere). And in fact it is not even the reason why you believe in God.

I hope you take the time to read this carefully and compare it against your own experience and how you have come to believe things (perhaps you will learn more about yourself than you think).

LMFAO, no offense taken.

 

[Gnug215]

I have not been a member here very long, and I hardly ever involve myself in the theist vs atheist debates that go on here. That said, something that comes up on occasion is that theists are delusional for believing in a god or a creator and I would like to know why some atheist paint most theist with this brush? I seriously tried to be an atheist when I found Christianity (the religion I was raised on) to be bogus, but that there were too many things that I had experienced and too many unanswered questions that an atheist view point could not explain. I will try to explain my reasoning for believing in a creator of some kind, the best I can.

I will start with my experiences of what some would call ghosts. I have lived in two places where I have witnessed this phenomenon. If I were the only one who had witnessed these events, then I could safely dismiss them as hallucinations, but how do several people at different times hallucinate the same damn thing? Because of these experiences I came to the conclusion that it is possible for there to be an after life of some kind.

I have a slight objection to this one.

Ghosts do not automatically present a problem for atheism.

If we assume that ghosts are evidence of an afterlife, then you'd still have to assume that an afterlife is a problem for atheism.

Not that I have heard many atheists who believe in ghosts, but that's besides the point. The point is simply that an atheist does not believe in a god.

Now if what you really meant to talk about was methodological naturalism, then that is still not necessarily a problem, because ghosts may very well have a natural explanation. There could very well be some kind of group-psychological effect in play that we don't know about, or some kind of neurological energy residue that is behind this phenomenon.

The existence of ghosts does not represent evidence against atheism - nor does it represent evidence for theism.

Secondly, I look at life on this planet and evolution. While I definitely believe evolution to be true and that humans share a common ancestor with the banana, there are some aspects to life that in my opinion cannot be sufficiently explained by a natural "only" process. Here are some examples:

[snip]

The universe also appears to be designed. Even Dawkins has said as much. I will not go into detail on the Big Bang and the fine-tuned universe crap, as most of you all have heard it before. But looking at everything, the universe, life and reality, I find it hard to believe it all just happened by chance. I admit that there might not be a creator and that consciousness may not survive death, and to be totally honest I do not care one way or the other. I just do not see how my beliefs make me delusional.

I do not think you're delusional. The fact hat you are willing to admit that there might not be a creator means that you're not dealing in absolutes, making you more sane and reasonable than most.

As a former theist, I can sympathise with the notion of looking at the world and imagining that something has to be behind it. The problem, as it occurs to me, is not the notion itself, but the unfounded conclusions we tend to draw from such notions.

There could be anything or nothing going on, but as a theist, I tended to fall back on that extremely comforting and familiar idea of a benign intelligence - not all that different from me in essense, but of course vastly different in scope and power - behind it all.
Having gained some insights as to some of the workings of the human mind, it seems natural that we would imagine something in the image of ourselves, only an ideal version, a much more powerful version.

I imagine that if dolphins have religious notions, it's not a great, bearded man in the sky, but a damn dolphin with... a really awesome fin or something.

If the world seems designed, is that so strange when we are part of the world? Could we possible live in a world that did not seem to make sense to us on some level? We'd have to be from a different world, perhaps then we could make an objective assesment about the "designedness" of the world.

 

[Dean]

["¦] ghosts may very well have a natural explanation. There could very well be some kind of group-psychological effect in play that we don't know about, or some kind of neurological energy residue that is behind this phenomenon. ["¦]

I understand this point, with one objection "neurological energy residue". That sounds like a term that would only be used by someone like Deepak Chopra. What is 'neurological energy', and what part of it is 'residue'? :? I must admit, the way you've phrased it sounds like the misuse of the word 'energy' employed to mean: that which we cannot explain, as done by Chopra et al. I'm not accusing you of adhering to his beliefs, but I think you'll need to be more specific about what you meant when you used that term.

Group psychological effects indeed. Or at least that's a plausible explanation. I'm sure you know just as well as I know, how disturbingly brilliant the human brain can be at forming meaningful interpretations (patterns) of totally unmeaning and unconscious phenomena. For example, I would speculate that the majority of Ghost tales that aren't terribly specific about the details of the ghosts themselves (such as in tuxbox's story) are caused by the effect of infrasound on human eyes. For example, I can vaguely remember an instance of a ghostly tale (it was in some documentary) wherein a man working somewhere in a big old stone building (usually completely alone) was experiencing some rather odd (and doubtless, rather disconcerting) phenomena, in which strange blurry images would appear that gave the essence of what looked a bit like a person, which always stayed in the corner of his field of vision, in the periphery region of the eye, and would sometimes just not move.

After considerable investigation was done into this by some scientists who were probing the room, environment, etc., it was found that the cause of these shapes was in fact the cars on the road some kilometres away, which were causing some sort of resonance with the walls, and thus altering the shape of the fluids in one's eye, which he naà¯vely assumed to be supernatural, for obvious reasons. Of course though, this is only one example, along with the i.e. "Groupmind" phenomena that also seems to be behind a lot of talk about ghosts, and it doesn't seem to square with Tuxbox's experience very well, because at least according to him, his own experience was far more detailed than just a blur in the corner of his eye. . . to be honest, regardless of how absurd the concept may be in itself, most stories like Tuxbox's are very, very difficult to assess in any sort of meaningful way.

I'm not suggesting that naturalistic explanations of this phenomena (as he described it) do not<i></i> exist. I am sure they do. I'm just saying that it's going to be very hard to nail down. Of course, as I said, and as you also said, somewhat; the existence of Ghosts does not contradict atheism per se.

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

Something like this for instance:

Perhaps technology will enable human beings to reflect light in such a way as to make it appear that a human individual is a ghost. Perhaps one of your neighbors was playing a nasty trick on you and decided that projecting some sort 'beings' would be a cool joke. Perhaps you were lucid dreaming. Perhaps one of your neighbors induced some sort of dream state by placing and/or injecting some sort of substance into your apartment. All of these would be valid natural explanations. Perhaps someone has placed some sort of program on your computer that does something not very nice and could be considered an invasion of privacy. Perhaps, perhaps.......... Let the imagination roll and I'm sure many more naturalistic causes could be found.

Are you speaking of the strict supernatural variety? And if so, how does one devise a test to be able to tell the difference between something that is supernatural and something that is natural?

 

[The Felonius Pope]

Now if what you really meant to talk about was methodological naturalism, then that is still not necessarily a problem, because ghosts may very well have a natural explanation.

Good point.I don't believe in ghosts, but author Marvin Kaye summed up my feelings on the possibility of their existence.

"Ghosts alone retain their ability to make me uneasy, largely because it is not necessary to accept any concomitant
religious system to believe the possibility of their existence. If man passes to another plane, it may only be because there are more aspects to our puzzle-box universe than we originally imagined.

 

[Gnug215]

["¦] ghosts may very well have a natural explanation. There could very well be some kind of group-psychological effect in play that we don't know about, or some kind of neurological energy residue that is behind this phenomenon. ["¦]

I understand this point, with one objection "neurological energy residue". That sounds like a term that would only be used by someone like Deepak Chopra. What is 'neurological energy', and what part of it is 'residue'? :? I must admit, the way you've phrased it sounds like the misuse of the word 'energy' employed to mean: that which we cannot explain, as done by Chopra et al. I'm not accusing you of adhering to his beliefs, but I think you'll need to be more specific about what you meant when you used that term.

Oh dear god no, not Chopra. He is despicable. He can kiss my neurological ass!

I deliberately meant to be rather broad and vague in order to explain something that could perhaps be possible. I'm not like Chopra who is deliberately broad and vague while arrogantly INSISTING that his pie in the sky is not only possible, but real.

But well, wireless transmission of energy is possible, so I don't think it's totally out of this world to imagine that biological life could somehow evolve this ability.
I'm not at all saying it is real. It would be quite far fetched - and there's no evidence for it whatsoever - and I'm much more likely to believe that we could be talking about some kind of group-psychological effect when it comes to ghosts.

People like Chopra make me sick, because he's out there selling books and products based on his pseudo-scientific crap, instead of doing the honest thing and trying to figure out some way to provide actual evidence for the crap he's spewing.

The fact that he instead is peddling his nonsense is evidence that he's a bloody charlatan.
HE is delusional if he thinks rational, intelligent people will fall for his crap if all he does is just sit in his armchair insisting that it's true.

 

[Gnug215]

Now if what you really meant to talk about was methodological naturalism, then that is still not necessarily a problem, because ghosts may very well have a natural explanation.

Good point.I don't believe in ghosts, but author Marvin Kaye summed up my feelings on the possibility of their existence.

"Ghosts alone retain their ability to make me uneasy, largely because it is not necessary to accept any concomitant
religious system to believe the possibility of their existence. If man passes to another plane, it may only be because there are more aspects to our puzzle-box universe than we originally imagined.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that there IS more than we originally imagined, evidenced by, for instance, many scientists' insistance on that there are some huge mysteries out there whose surface we haven't even scratched.

What I think it also clear is that the mysterious we'll uncover are highly unlikely to be what I consider to be wishful-thinking-stories like an afterlife, our dead relatives appearing as ghosts, telepathy, telekinesis, etc., but more really, really, REALLY weird and incomprihensible stuff like we've seen with quantum mechanics and the like - stuff that our minds aren't even built to grasp, and we'll have to bend our minds to just accept the reality of it.

 

[tuxbox]

OP

Unless I'm deeply wrong about evolution, I'm pretty sure the pictures you just showed are a prime example of why evolution DOES happen and why it's responsible for all the complexity of life we see today. I'm sure LoRian experts on biology will explain this flawlessly (unlike me), but the point is that the insects that happened to have a random mutation that made their camouflage just a LITTLE tiny bit were able to survive longer and breed more than insects that didn't, thus passing these mutations to the next generation, and so on and so forth.

Also, you can't believe in evolution and not believe that it's responsible for all the complex species we see today - unless you have some expert opinion on how exactly these mutations are unexplainable by evolution, supported by actual empirical data. Which you don't.


Go on, boys, and correct me where I'm wrong.

Actually I can believe evolution to be 100% true and still believe it was designed. Now that may sound illogical to you but it doesn't make impossible.

 

[WarK]

Actually I can believe evolution to be 100% true and still believe it was designed. Now that may sound illogical to you but it doesn't make impossible.

Theory of evolution has no need for external designer that watches over it. Adding a designer doesn't explain anything it only makes things more complicated. You only need a designer because of your preconceived notion that there is one.

 

[tuxbox]

Actually I can believe evolution to be 100% true and still believe it was designed. Now that may sound illogical to you but it doesn't make impossible.

Theory of evolution has no need for external designer that watches over it. Adding a designer doesn't explain anything it only makes things more complicated. You only need a designer because of your preconceived notion that there is one.

I agree with everything you said, but that was not what CosmicJoghurt was implying. He was implying that I CANNOT believe the TOE because in my opinion it was designed.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I don't know, Tuxbox... why are you delusional?

 

[Visaki]

I agree with everything you said, but that was not what CosmicJoghurt was implying. He was implying that I CANNOT believe the TOE because in my opinion it was designed.

If you believe in the theory of evolution but believe that was designed does that mean that you believe that the actual mechanisms and laws of the theory were designed, or created, by a supernatural source like a god and then left to run their course, or that evolution was actively guided by a supernatural source like a god?

If latter then no, you can't believe in the theory of evolution since you throw out one of the most important part of it, natural selection. It'd be rather like saying you believe in the theory of relativity but not in the curving of space. Does not compute.

If former I concur with WarK, adding a designer doesn't really add anything more to the theory than an unverifiable, ineffective cause for a feel good reason.

 

[tuxbox]

I agree with everything you said, but that was not what CosmicJoghurt was implying. He was implying that I CANNOT believe the TOE because in my opinion it was designed.

If you believe in the theory of evolution but believe that was designed does that mean that you believe that the actual mechanisms and laws of the theory were designed, or created, by a supernatural source like a god and then left to run their course, or that evolution was actively guided by a supernatural source like a god?

If latter then no, you can't believe in the theory of evolution since you throw out one of the most important part of it, natural selection. It'd be rather like saying you believe in the theory of relativity but not in the curving of space. Does not compute.

If former I concur with WarK, adding a designer doesn't really add anything more to the theory than an unverifiable, ineffective cause for a feel good reason.

I do not like using the term god/s because in my opinion that implies entity/s or being/s that desires and demands to be worshiped. That said, if there is a creator, it just set the events in motion that led to the creation of the universe and life within it.

 

[WarK]

Theory of evolution has no need for external designer that watches over it. Adding a designer doesn't explain anything it only makes things more complicated. You only need a designer because of your preconceived notion that there is one.

I agree with everything you said, but that was not what CosmicJoghurt was implying. He was implying that I CANNOT believe the TOE because in my opinion it was designed.

You're right. Sheer amount of all sorts of beliefs shows that one can believe pretty much anything, no matter how superfluous or unreasonable the belief is.

However, theory of evolution explains the diversity of life solely by naturalistic means. Incorporating a supernatural designer into TOE seems like misunderstanding the theory of evolution. There really is no need of a designer to explain biodiversity on this planet. You mentioned some examples that you thought posed a problem to TOE. Weren't the answers you were given satisfactory? What, do you think, are the problems with those explanations? I'm sure members more versed in biology will be able to explain all those. Or in other words (AronRa's I think), can you show one specific life form or organ that couldn't have evolved but had to be designed?

 

[WarK]

I do not like using the term god/s because in my opinion that implies entity/s or being/s that desires and demands to be worshiped. That said, if there is a creator, it just set the events in motion that led to the creation of the universe and life within it.

Why? Again, adding some additional "creator" doesn't explain anything. It's ok to say "I don't know". And how do you know there was only one? Could there be more? What if there were more and they didn't do anything and the universe went on by itself? How do you know this kind of things?

You say you don't like the term "god". But I think that's what you really want. To have some kind consolation that there's someone there thinking about you and taking care of you. Processes don't have personality, they don't have emotions, they don't care. But an anthropomorphic creator-being could have those. I think this is the crux of this self-delusional kind of thinking. People seek agency everywhere, we're more used to things happening because someone else did something. Processes that have no sentience are foreign to us.

 

[tuxbox]

You're right. Sheer amount of all sorts of beliefs shows that one can believe pretty much anything, no matter how superfluous or unreasonable the belief is.

However, theory of evolution explains the diversity of life solely by naturalistic means. Incorporating a supernatural designer into TOE seems like misunderstanding the theory of evolution. There really is no need of a designer to explain biodiversity on this planet. You mentioned some examples that you thought posed a problem to TOE. Weren't the answers you were given satisfactory? What, do you think, are the problems with those explanations? I'm sure members more versed in biology will be able to explain all those. Or in other words (AronRa's I think), can you show one specific life form or organ that couldn't have evolved but had to be designed?

I am not saying that the TOE evolution needs a supernatural designer for life to be explained. I am not even saying that a designer definitely exists. All I am saying is that the universe and life within it appears designed which implies a designer.

 

[tuxbox]

Why? Again, adding some additional "creator" doesn't explain anything. It's ok to say "I don't know". And how do you know there was only one? Could there be more? What if there were more and they didn't do anything and the universe went on by itself? How do you know this kind of things?

I am okay with saying "I do not know" and I have said as much in this very topic.

You say you don't like the term "god". But I think that's what you really want. To have some kind consolation that there's someone there thinking about you and taking care of you. Processes don't have personality, they don't have emotions, they don't care. But an anthropomorphic creator-being could have those. I think this is the crux of this self-delusional kind of thinking. People seek agency everywhere, we're more used to things happening because someone else did something. Processes that have no sentience are foreign to us.

Actually I do not believe, if there is a creator that gives a flying frogs butt about me or any other living creature in this universe and I am okay with that.

*Edited*

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

There are several reasons to be skeptical of your ghost experience:

1. Human Perception is flawed

Your brain uses loads of shortcuts to present you with a seemingly coherent picture of the world. There are several ways in which you can easily see that this is the case. The most obvious are the ways in which magicians take advantage of our flawed perception. It's not simply a case of them misdirecting you, but of the fact that your brain often sees what it expects to see. Another way is to look at how we can be fooled by optical illusions, or how the we can be fooled into thinking that a prosthetic arm is or own arm. Our brains have evolved to seek out patterns even when they aren't there. The "Face on Mars" and "Jesus in a piece of toast" screwing with our facial recognition are obvious examples, but not the only ones.

If you experience something odd (especially in a "spooky" environment where your senses are not working optimally) there is a significant chance that you will misinterpret it. This does not make it a hallucination, and it certainly doesn't make you an idiot.

2. Human memory is very inaccurate

Every time you recall a memory, you are not simply playing back a recording, but recreating the experience. Your mind has a tendency to try to piece memories together into a coherent narrative, twisting facts and muddling experiences together. Famously, even "Flashbulb Memories" ie. "I remember what I was doing when the twin towers fell" are flawed. These used to be thought to be the most accurate memories, but studies have shown that when people are asked what they were doing a few days after such an incident and then again years later, around half will have completely changed their story.

3. Interaction with other people can actually make your memory less accurate

You said that you had a shared experience, and think that this makes it less likely to be innaccurate, but his is actually not the case. Police are much more likely to get accurate information from witnesses if they are interviewed straight after an incident without having had contact with others. It will still be unreliable but not as bad as if witnesses have had chance to talk to each other. Talking to each other actually reinforces that instinct to form a coherent narrative and things that one person or another says will get adopted into your memory even though you didn't originally recall seeing them. This again is not anyone being stupid but normal human behaviour.

Memories can even be contaminated by the way in which questions about them are phrased. Witnesses to car accidents will report them to be worse when asked about when cars "smashed" to when asked about when they "contacted."

Famously people can even be made to invent detailed memories of events that never happened simply by showing them photoshopped photos of an invented event "from their childhood." Afterwards many will become sure that it actually occurred.

I've barely even scratched the surface here, and I'd encourage you to investigate more on the psychology and neuroscience of human memory and perception. I'd suggest that the key to understanding many seemingly anomalous incidents is knowing how unreliable humans are both as witnesses to something that is occurring and afterwards in trying to recall the experience.

 

[The Felonius Pope]

Adding a designer doesn't explain anything it only makes things more complicated.

This argument was one of the main reasons for why I drifted away from Lutheranism.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

You're right. Sheer amount of all sorts of beliefs shows that one can believe pretty much anything, no matter how superfluous or unreasonable the belief is.

However, theory of evolution explains the diversity of life solely by naturalistic means. Incorporating a supernatural designer into TOE seems like misunderstanding the theory of evolution. There really is no need of a designer to explain biodiversity on this planet. You mentioned some examples that you thought posed a problem to TOE. Weren't the answers you were given satisfactory? What, do you think, are the problems with those explanations? I'm sure members more versed in biology will be able to explain all those. Or in other words (AronRa's I think), can you show one specific life form or organ that couldn't have evolved but had to be designed?

I am not saying that the TOE evolution needs a supernatural designer for life to be explained. I am not even saying that a designer definitely exists. All I am saying is that the universe and life within it appears designed which implies a designer.

No, it implies that something made it look designed.