Most people have or like fantasies. The popularity of fictional movies, books and TV series seems to attest to that. In the case of TV series, there can be quite the devoted audiences. On some levels, some people's supernatural believes are no more dangerous than the aforementioned types of fictions. That's when people do not base too much of their real lives on what characters in the fictions tell them or suggest to do. I do not find that level of supernaturalism as objectionable. But religions, being primitive supernatural belief systems, get more dangerous as people devote too much of their reality to them and makes decisions and judgements based on the fictitious characters.
By the way, I consider newer religions such as Scientology to also be primitive supernatural belief systems because they are basically branches off the same primitive mentalities and persuasions.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Belief-dependent Realism
"We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, personal, and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture, and society at large; after forming our beliefs, we then defend, justify, and rationalize them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments, and rational explanations. Beliefs come first, explanations for beliefs follow. I call this process belief-dependent realism, where our perceptions about reality are dependent on the beliefs that we hold about it. Reality exists independent of human minds, but our understanding of it depends upon the beliefs we hold at any given time."
Michael Shermer, The Believing Brain (2011)
Our brains do not simply record and play back experiences as they occurred. Put in general terms, our conscious recall and even direct experiences are filtered through our beliefs and assumptions. We even unconsciously attach false information to events. I believe near death experiences involve these elements of brain activity. The brain reacts to physical conditions and ome of these reactions result in what we interpret later as visual input. Then our perception of what we think was visual input results in ideas and thoughts which later merge with the event. The end result is sometimes a recall of an event which has only a small connection to what really happened.
Michael Shermer, The Believing Brain (2011)
Our brains do not simply record and play back experiences as they occurred. Put in general terms, our conscious recall and even direct experiences are filtered through our beliefs and assumptions. We even unconsciously attach false information to events. I believe near death experiences involve these elements of brain activity. The brain reacts to physical conditions and ome of these reactions result in what we interpret later as visual input. Then our perception of what we think was visual input results in ideas and thoughts which later merge with the event. The end result is sometimes a recall of an event which has only a small connection to what really happened.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Moral Relativism
Moral relativism has been used as a reason for religion and belief in a god. It has been said that lack of religion or belief in a deity leads to moral relativism. It is argued that religions and deistic beliefs support a standard set of beliefs.
This argument is false. It's actually backward. Religions and belief in deities already have moral relativism. In addition to religions having different sets of morals, so do different denominations and sects. An example is how birth control is allowed by some christian denominations but not by others. My mother switched from a pentecostal church to a baptist church because the pentecostal church believed that she was sinning when she remarried after having divorced my father. Violent and deadly conflicts between muslim sects are additional evidence for existing moral relativism within religions.
I believe that morality / ethics become more standardized and evolved with the absence of religions in the process. Religious immoralities such as witch hunts and homosexual killings are held in check by secular laws.
This argument is false. It's actually backward. Religions and belief in deities already have moral relativism. In addition to religions having different sets of morals, so do different denominations and sects. An example is how birth control is allowed by some christian denominations but not by others. My mother switched from a pentecostal church to a baptist church because the pentecostal church believed that she was sinning when she remarried after having divorced my father. Violent and deadly conflicts between muslim sects are additional evidence for existing moral relativism within religions.
I believe that morality / ethics become more standardized and evolved with the absence of religions in the process. Religious immoralities such as witch hunts and homosexual killings are held in check by secular laws.
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