Being annoying is definitely a better reason to ban someone then some of the reasons Scott listed above.
You realize that a moderation system like that isn't for banning: it's for rewarding good posters and creating incentives for good posting. It's just mechanism design to encourage thoughtful and interesting contribution.
I'm still annoyed that we automatically close religion discussion threads.
Religion threads are only closed if they cover no new ground or consist entirely of already-disproven arguments for which no new counterarguments are provided. This rule applies to any topic, but religion has been the most egregious offender. If you wishto have a cut-and-paste battle with the uninformed, I can suggest several religous discussion forums. ^_~
I started a thread about a study showing how many people believe in divine intervention, then during the course of the discussion someone brings up one of those cut and paste arguements and the thread gets closed. We will never have another debate on religion because at some point someone is going to bring up some cut and paste arguement and the thread will be closed.... Which sucks because sometimes if you work at it enough you do get through to people. I mean look at gedavid, he voted for Obama :-p
Which sucks because sometimes if you work at it enough you do get through to people. I mean look at gedavid, he voted for Obama :-p
Politics is one thing, but even James Randi believes that the woo-woos cannot be convinced under any circumstances. He said outright that he's never seen it happen, and that he thinks it's impossible.
Any thread debating the truth of religious beliefs (as opposed to hypotheticals, ethics, history, practicality, philosophy, or theory) is pointless unless the most basic refutation of truth is itself countered. Arguing any point beyond that is tantamount to debating the color of Bigfoot's stool.
I'm in two minds about posting this as it is very off-topic, but people leaving their faith and becoming atheists certainly does happen. Richard Dawkins, on his site, has an entire section called "Converts Corner".
people leaving their faith and becoming atheists certainly does happen. Richard Dawkins, on his site, has an entire section called "Converts Corner".
Randi's argument, which is mirrored in many of Dawkins' writings, is that those people didn't actually hold strong beliefs to begin with. They're a step removed from the "woo-woos" or "true believers." Dawkins himself said something to the effect that The God Delusion was targeted more at people who were already atheists but simply wouldn't admit it to themselves than at true believers.
If you guys can, you should just reopen the Forum Rules and Hints thread and update it with some of the issues that have been going on.
Indeed. General guideline updates may be in order.
Also, don't get asshole mixed up with hardass. Challenging someone to actually try to write literately or support their point of view does not make you an asshole. The way you present it (as in said intro post example) is what makes you an asshole or not. If "misuse" of an ellipsis is the only problem with the newcomer's post, then let it go. We use ellipses in colloquial fashion all the time, and no one yells at us. If the newcomer has other spelling/grammar issues, then you can easily write a civil post to point out that they need to take more care with their spelling and grammar.
For reference: Civil: "Welcome to the forum! Please remember to take care to use proper spelling and grammar, as those things are generally required here." Not civil: "Holy shit, your mother must have been an uneducated caveman!"
We use ellipses in colloquial fashion all the time, and no one yells at us.
They're fine so long as they don't appear messy....in the manner that some people like to use them... You know, ending every sentence with them... and using them intra-sentence....on a regular basis..with varying numbers of periods.......................... ^_~
We use ellipses in colloquial fashion all the time, and no one yells at us.
They're fine so long as they don't appear messy....in the manner that some people like to use them... You know, ending every sentence with them... and using them intra-sentence....on a regular basis..with varying numbers of periods.......................... ^_~
people leaving their faith and becoming atheists certainly does happen. Richard Dawkins, on his site, has an entire section called "Converts Corner".
Randi's argument, which is mirrored in many of Dawkins' writings, is that those people didn't actually hold strong beliefs to begin with. They're a step removed from the "woo-woos" or "true believers." Dawkins himself said something to the effect thatThe God Delusionwas targeted more at people who were already atheists but simply wouldn't admit it to themselves than at true believers.
I think you're wrong here. I used to be a hard-core Catholic. I was training to be a priest and did all of those crazy Catholic things. I was a true believer. However, after reading many forums and discussions about religion, as well as suggested books(Carl Sagan, etc.), I am now a complete skeptic. Perhaps you are right and I was just one level down, but it sure doesn't seem like it to me. Those discussions can be invaluable.
I don't see why you are so opposed to something you could very easily ignore simply by not clicking.
people leaving their faith and becoming atheists certainly does happen. Richard Dawkins, on his site, has an entire section called "Converts Corner".
Randi's argument, which is mirrored in many of Dawkins' writings, is that those people didn't actually hold strong beliefs to begin with. They're a step removed from the "woo-woos" or "true believers." Dawkins himself said something to the effect thatThe God Delusionwas targeted more at people who were already atheists but simply wouldn't admit it to themselves than at true believers.
I think you're wrong here. I used to be a hard-core Catholic. I was training to be a priest and did all of those crazy Catholics. I was a true believer.
I was also a true believer.
Not only was I true believer, I believed that anyone who rejected Christianity wasn't actually a real Christian and wasn't really a true believer.
Then I wasn't a true believer any more, but I looked at Christians like my brother and I believed that he was a true believer, as he had given his entire life to work full time for the Church for pretty much no pay. But then he is no longer a true believer, and is just as much an atheist and skeptic as myself. And I know his mind was changed, in part, by podcasts like Penn Radio and other online resources.
And then I look at true believers like my parents who are more hardcore Christian than anyone I knew. My father reads the Bible hours every day. Surely they are true true believers and can't be changed. Well, it turns out that after 35 years they no longer go to church. Does that make them no longer true believers?
You might as well call the No True Scotsman fallacy the No True Believer fallacy. It's just so much bullshit.
Which sucks because sometimes if you work at it enough you do get through to people. I mean look at gedavid, he voted for Obama :-p
Politics is one thing, but even James Randi believes that the woo-woos cannot be convinced under any circumstances. He said outright that he's never seen it happen, and that he thinks it's impossible.
Any thread debating thetruthof religious beliefs (as opposed to hypotheticals, ethics, history, practicality, philosophy, or theory) is pointless unless the most basic refutation of truth is itself countered. Arguing any point beyond that is tantamount to debating the color of Bigfoot's stool.
Well Randi doesn't seem to try and convince people then, I've personally watched true believers slide from religion to Atheism (or something close) and it wasn't people who were wishy washy about it. My friend Alex, went from a extremely pro-life, anti-evolution conservative christian view to a pro-choice, evolution loving commie atheist. He changed purely from people continuing to discuss and argue with him. You can't expect to change someone's worldview in one conversation, but over time a well mannered and polite discussion will work on anyone with half a brain (and most people have half a brain).
Randi's argument, which is mirrored in many of Dawkins' writings, is that those people didn't actually hold strong beliefs to begin with. They're a step removed from the "woo-woos" or "true believers." Dawkins himself said something to the effect thatThe God Delusionwas targeted more at people who were already atheists but simply wouldn't admit it to themselves than at true believers.
Right, I'd agree with you to a degree. I just object to the idea that it's impossible and can never happen, which I'm sure you would agree with me on. And, while I respect James Randi, for him (of all people) to make a claim like that seems very strange and almost contradictory to what he does (Knocking down people who are claiming absolutes).
I agree that arguing with religious fundamentalists can be akin to screaming at a puddle for being wet (and most often the arguments provided by the atheist/naturalist side are redundant/regurgitated quotes from books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris and the arguments used by the theistic side are directly copy and pasted from people like Kent Hovind) and there are many places on the Internet to do this. But passive aggressively denying all converse on the subject here is questionable thing to do.
But passive aggressively denying all converse on the subject here is questionable thing to do.
But as I said, regardless of any other factors, unless someone can present even a reasonably coherent counterargument to the simplest refutation of their beliefs, then there is absolutely no room for further debate.
Here's the test of a true believer. When was the first time you questioned the beliefs? Even if you thought only within the context of the beliefs, when was the first time you used thought about the beliefs in a rational way?
If you had asked me maybe 15 years ago if I believed in god I would have said yes, reflexively. Even when I first got to RIT I hung with the Jews at the Hillel for a short time. However, I can remember from a young age questioning it, in my mind. Asking these questions to myself in my immature mind often lead down the wrong path, such as believing in aliens and such.
I would even sometimes use rational logic on top of false assumptions, in the classic Jewish fashion. Where did Cain's wife come from? How did all the animals fit on the ark? How did Noah not get eaten by dinosaurs? Even though I accepted the base assumptions that the old testament stories were true, I attempted to rationally evaluate them in the context of themselves.
Even if you think you are a true believing, it is the development of those critical thinking skills that makes the difference. As you get later and later in life it becomes harder and harder to develop those skills if you don't have them already. If you don't have the critical thinking skills, you will stubbornly refuse any new inputs that contradict with existing knowledge in the same context. When the contexts are different, cognitive dissonance will come into play. If you do have critical thinking skills, you will actually evaluate knew information, and be open to changing even the deepest beliefs.
Even if you have believed in some bs your entire life, if you have the capability to think critically and rationally, you are an atheist who just doesn't know it. And when you are eventually presented with the rational arguments for atheism, and you actually try to evaluate them, you will realize you were atheist all along. If you don't have sufficient critical thinking skills, for one reason or another, you will believe what you believe, and will be a slave to your whim and feelings as opposed to reason. No amount of logical argument or evidence will change your thoughts. Even if you attempted to evaluate the arguments, you would fail to comprehend their logic. You might become a true believer in atheism, as by faith. But without the ability to come to the conclusion for yourself, it doesn't mean much.
Think of it in the context of mathematics. Three people come up to you. One person tells you that 1+1=2. Another tells you that 1+1=3. The third tells you that 1+1=11. If you are incapable of rational thought, you are going to pick one and stick with it. Your knowledge is on a foundation of assumptions. You accept those assumptions without question or thought, and build all other knowledge on top of them. You might be lucky and pick 1+1=2, but you would just be a true believer in the truth, as opposed to a true believer in a lie.
Now imagine if the same three people come to you, but you have the ability to think rationally and critically. You might lean towards 1+1=11. You might accept it, and even profess it. However, you have the ability to do your own proofs. At some point in our life, you are going to challenge that idea that 1+1=11. You will try to prove it. Someone will come up to you and present a proof that 1+1=2. You will evaluate that proof. You will find for yourself, with actual evidence and logic, not feelings, that this is true. And thus, you were never a true believer. The path of proof and reason leads in one direction. If you employ those tools, you will find the same path as all others, even if you walked another for a long time.
Ok, so then by that logic, the people who post here about religion probably aren't "true believers" by your definition. So that means their minds can be changed. Not with one forum thread but by many contacts with many rational beings over a long period of time.
However, I disagree with your take on "True Believers" as once again you've reduced the concept down to something unusable, as there is no way that we can independently prove by outside observation the person's capacity for reason. I think the only test of someone being a true believer or not is if, when they privately ask something of themselves, they honestly think, with no hint of doubt, that what they think is the truth. What happens in the future is irrelevant. What they believe to be true, no matter how much they have thought or reasoned on the topic, is what they actually believe.
I'm not going to discuss it with you further, as I've promised my self never to bother. You are a true believer in your own intellect and superiority in discussions like this. Nothing I could say on this topic will make you change your mind.
You can never know what someone is thinking. You have to forget the solipsism and accept that you can use the things someone says as evidence of how they think.
Some people in their speech make it very clear that they are capable of thinking along certain patterns that we call rationality. Even Hacidic Jews will display their ability to think rationally when they become rules-lawyers. All of the crazy rules they follow are perfectly rational, they just all rest upon the false assumption that the old testament is the word of the one and only all-powerful deity. It's no different than a D+D player who assumes that words in the rule books are indisputable laws of the (fantasy) universe.
Other people in their speech make it clear they are incapable of thinking in a rational pattern. You can show them that the magician used a pair of fake legs to make it look like they cut a person in half. You can show them the entire trick being done from behind the scenes. However, they will continue to believe the magician truly has supernatural powers. You can argue with someone who only rebuts by quoting scripture. You can explain to them that their argument only holds if the scripture holds, and that the scripture is just a book like any other. They make an appeal to antiquity, and you explain to them that they are doing so, but they fail to comprehend. Older books must be more true than newer books! You ask them if old science like heat being a liquid is more true than modern science. Yet, they won't understand how that idea is related to the idea of the bible. They are incapable of thinking in the same patterns, and nobody appears able to teach them.
People like ourselves, Randi, Dawkins, and others have had these same conversations and arguments many times. It's anecdotal, but the quantities of anecdotes, and correlations between anecdotes are very numerous. Some people display some capacity to think rationally, even if they presently hold irrational beliefs. Other people do not display this capacity in any fashion, and no amount of effort or varying methodologies appears capable of granting them this ability.
If you do have the ability to reason, then you can not have true 100% faith in some external supernatural phenomenon. Your ultimate faith must be in your own mind, and your own thoughts. You believe that the things you reason for yourself are true more than you believe a book is true. Only someone who has no ability to reason whatsoever can fully put all of their faith into some external idea. And thus, only people who are devoid of rationality can be true believers. All others are rationalists who are some distance from arriving at (mostly) the same conclusions.
James Randi gets plenty of letters from people all the time about how his work has helped them to stop believing in bs crap. How they used to use fake medicine, but stopped. How they believed in psychics, but stopped. Yet, he still claims, as of a few weeks ago, that you can't change a true believer's mind. A true believer is someone who is hopeless. They never have, and never will, think in a rational fashion.
I made it very clear that religion threads are not banned. You must simply start by rebutting the flying spaghetti monster argument. Even if you fail to come up with even a shitty rebuttal, if you can at least demonstrate that you comprehend the argument itself, you will demonstrate that you have the capacity for rational thought. In demonstrating that capacity, you prove you are not a true believer, and that having a discussion with you is not a complete waste of everyone's time. If you believe, and yet are incapable of even understand what people mean when they compare god to a flying spaghetti monster, or space teapot, then there is no point in talking to you and filling up the forum with your lunacy.
You can never know what someone is thinking. You have to forget the solipsism and accept that you can use the things someone says as evidence of how they think.
This is exactly my point. When someone says they are a true believer, I use that as evidence that what they believe they think is completely true. All the other stuff you said falls down completely by showing someone has any capability to use reason about anything. I think if someone is at a level where use of reason is impossible for them, they exist on a purely animalistic and instinctual level and probably won't be able feed themselves.
The actions and words you assign to a true believer would have fitted me perfectly. I had arguments with my geography teacher about the age of the earth. God talked to me. I had real spiritual experiences and witnessed miracles first hand.
But I guess that wasn't enough. Oh well. I'm glad I'm not a Christian any more, because if I was I'd have to believe that people like me were going to hell.
I had arguments with my geography teacher about the age of the earth.
And herein we find that you were rationally thinking all along. You asked questions. You didn't accept what you were told. You were critically thinking about things, but your thinking was on a foundation of false assumptions.
This actually gives me an idea of a good example between a true believer and one who is not. If you're arguing about the age of the earth with someone, carbon dating is sure to come into question. The believer might claim that carbon dating is bullshit. Most of the time, this person will have no idea how carbon dating actually works. So you explain to them the actual science behind carbon dating. Once the rational thinker actually understands the science behind carbon dating they'll have a problem. They'll start thinking really hard, they'll retreat to some other topic. The true believer, however, will say something about god making carbon dating work that way on purpose to fool you. When you argue with enough people, you become able to tell how people are thinking, and you can tell whether someone is a true believer or not.
Also, keep in mind that not everything religious is disallowed. If you wanted to say, talk about the book of revelations and how pestilence is the best, then that's cool. If you want to talk about the story of Abraham, and how it works as a metaphor for a particular book you just read, or something that happened in the real world, that's cool as well. If you want to talk about interesting Hindu myths and their similarities to Greek myths, that's also awesome. Discussions involving religion are ok. What is not allowed is the same old tired discussion of "does anything supernatural exist." If you want to have that discussion, your first post had better contain a flying spaghetti monster refutation.
And herein we find that you were rationally thinking all along. You asked questions. You didn't accept what you were told. You were critically thinking about things, but your thinking was on a foundation of false assumptions.
I see where you are going with this, but no. I accepted for fact what I was taught at church and by my parents. I wasn't asking questions, I was parroting what I was told. The geography teacher was simply wrong and had been deceived by the devil.
Again, you are making arguments about what was going on in my head. Aside from any future ability to reason, at the time I believed fully. That was all that mattered to me at the time. Belief is in the head. True belief is also in the head. I believed 100% that I would never not be a Christian and believe the same things. I almost died once, and was fine with it, knowing that I'd go to heaven. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.
Again, find my someone who is entirely without the ability to reason about anything and you'll be showing me someone in a constant vegetitive state. You've drawn the line based on your perceptions, and you've excluded every human being from ever having truly believing anything.
There were lots of factors. Overall the largest factor was emotional. I was screwed up by bad experiences in my church, then later by other contacts with Christians. It took about 10 years or so to complete the process. And I would say I became a fully fledged skeptic years later.
I'm not saying I didn't rationally criticize my beliefs, I certainly did. I've mentioned in other threads how I used to argue my theological views during bible studies.
But the rational part of my brain didn't impinge on my belief. I could use rational thinking in all kinds of way, in all kinds of areas in my life. I liked magic and loved seeing how tricks were done. I dismantled the claims of other religions, showing their logical flaws and laughing at how they could be so mistaken. This in no affected my own religious beliefs.
There is a way to compartmentalize areas of your life and your thoughts. It is possible for someone to believe 100% in the imminent return of Christ (no matter if they are pre- or post-tribulationists) and still get life insurance.
Don't tell me a true believer is in no way rational. I'll easily point out rational actions. Belief is something aside from that.
It is possible for someone to believe 100% in the imminent return of Christ (no matter if they are pre- or post-tribulationists) and still get life insurance.
No, it isn't. If they believed 100%, then there would be a zero percent chance of that life insurance coming into play. Either that belief was merely a 99.9999% chance, or they were additionally irrational in purchasing a product they could never possibly use.
See, what you're telling me now is just cementing the ideas I already have. You clearly show that you had critical thinking skills. You say that they impinge on your belief. I say they didn't impinge on your belief yet. You start by questioning one thing, and then another, and then another, and it takes a long time before you question everything and become a skeptic all the way through. It took me over 20 years, and I started in a much less religious environment than many.
The thing I think you seem to not understand is there is a difference between someone acting rationally, and someone actually having real critical thinking and problem solving skills. These are rare skills I'm talking about there, not something that everyone has. I don't know if you've never met people like this, but there are plenty of them out there. They just don't get it.
Take for example another story from James Randi. It concerns faith healer Peter Popoff. He's a huge televangelist who has been raking in the dough for a long time. At one of his shows a woman in a wheelchair stood up and walked. They went and talked to the woman afterwards, and apparently she didn't need the wheelchair, she could always walk. They just told her to sit in the chair, and then told her to stand up. Of course the audience believed it was a miracle of faith healing.
Are you ready for the scary part? The woman who sat in the wheelchair, and stood up. Afterwards even she still fully believed that Popoff had healing powers.
Same guy, Peter Popoff. Of course he wears an earpiece radio, and is wife radios him information about the people in the audience. A typical trick of psychics and such. Someone went to his show with a scanner, and recorded the radio transmissions. Randi took those transmissions on to The Johnny Carson show and completely exposed Popoff. He's also exposed psychics like Uri Geller. You can see it all in this YouTube video. Despite seeing this video, people still believe Popoff. Popoff is still raking it in even though he was exposed as a fraud decades ago.
We're not talking about faith in some god where you can't prove it yes or no. We're talking about things where they can be shown to be false with physical real world evidence. And we do show that physical real world contradictory evidence of falsehood to people, and their minds don't change. In decades of trying it has never worked. The true believer, with insufficient critical thinking skills, can not be swayed.
I think the reason you disagree with me is because you still have some faith that nobody is that dumb. People are this dumb. There are lots of them. Despair.
Anyhow, back to the point, listeners come to the forums and may have some stupid ideas, I never have a problem straightening them out. The sheer attack a person with a non-coherent argument is exposed to will either drive them away or force them to think of a coherent argument. I think they moderate themselves on their own after a few days. Why worry about moderating them. The forum goers who have crazy religious views eventually learn to stay away from those threads. Not to mention hearing a different take on a old idea is always at the very least amusing.
Scott, I worked at God TV, an international christian broadcaster, I know all about dodgy miracles and fraudulent televangelists.
Just explain to me how your "No True Believer" argument is different from the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. No you've brought everything down to this:
Two sets: A. Most people have rejected their irrational faith. These are not and have never been true believers. B. Some people have not rejected their irrational faith. These people are true believers.
But when someone in set B becomes more rational and rejects their irrational faith, they are now part of set A. But then you say "Ah, but they weren't TRUE true believers.
It all comes down to the fact that some people will change their minds and some won't. And guess what, you've not gotany way how to tell those who may change their minds in the future apart from those who may not change their minds in the future.
Admit it, there is no way to tell future-non-true-believers apart from future-true-believers. What is the test?
Answer that question and I'll maybe consider your definition. So far you've provided no evidence except various anecdotes.
No, it isn't. If they believed 100%, then there would be a zero percent chance of that life insurance coming into play. Either that belief was merely a 99.9999% chance, or they were additionally irrational in purchasing a product they could never possibly use.
But they believe that they believe 100%. This is my point. You can't make external tests on people's beliefs. Your rationality will pick holes in what they believe easier than a hot knife through butter. But to the believer, nothing matters except what they believe at the time.
Comments
I started a thread about a study showing how many people believe in divine intervention, then during the course of the discussion someone brings up one of those cut and paste arguements and the thread gets closed. We will never have another debate on religion because at some point someone is going to bring up some cut and paste arguement and the thread will be closed.... Which sucks because sometimes if you work at it enough you do get through to people. I mean look at gedavid, he voted for Obama :-p
Any thread debating the truth of religious beliefs (as opposed to hypotheticals, ethics, history, practicality, philosophy, or theory) is pointless unless the most basic refutation of truth is itself countered. Arguing any point beyond that is tantamount to debating the color of Bigfoot's stool.
Also, don't get asshole mixed up with hardass. Challenging someone to actually try to write literately or support their point of view does not make you an asshole. The way you present it (as in said intro post example) is what makes you an asshole or not. If "misuse" of an ellipsis is the only problem with the newcomer's post, then let it go. We use ellipses in colloquial fashion all the time, and no one yells at us. If the newcomer has other spelling/grammar issues, then you can easily write a civil post to point out that they need to take more care with their spelling and grammar.
For reference:
Civil: "Welcome to the forum! Please remember to take care to use proper spelling and grammar, as those things are generally required here."
Not civil: "Holy shit, your mother must have been an uneducated caveman!"
I don't see why you are so opposed to something you could very easily ignore simply by not clicking.
Not only was I true believer, I believed that anyone who rejected Christianity wasn't actually a real Christian and wasn't really a true believer.
Then I wasn't a true believer any more, but I looked at Christians like my brother and I believed that he was a true believer, as he had given his entire life to work full time for the Church for pretty much no pay. But then he is no longer a true believer, and is just as much an atheist and skeptic as myself. And I know his mind was changed, in part, by podcasts like Penn Radio and other online resources.
And then I look at true believers like my parents who are more hardcore Christian than anyone I knew. My father reads the Bible hours every day. Surely they are true true believers and can't be changed. Well, it turns out that after 35 years they no longer go to church. Does that make them no longer true believers?
You might as well call the No True Scotsman fallacy the No True Believer fallacy. It's just so much bullshit.
Hope I added something to the conversation.
I agree that arguing with religious fundamentalists can be akin to screaming at a puddle for being wet (and most often the arguments provided by the atheist/naturalist side are redundant/regurgitated quotes from books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris and the arguments used by the theistic side are directly copy and pasted from people like Kent Hovind) and there are many places on the Internet to do this. But passive aggressively denying all converse on the subject here is questionable thing to do.
If you had asked me maybe 15 years ago if I believed in god I would have said yes, reflexively. Even when I first got to RIT I hung with the Jews at the Hillel for a short time. However, I can remember from a young age questioning it, in my mind. Asking these questions to myself in my immature mind often lead down the wrong path, such as believing in aliens and such.
I would even sometimes use rational logic on top of false assumptions, in the classic Jewish fashion. Where did Cain's wife come from? How did all the animals fit on the ark? How did Noah not get eaten by dinosaurs? Even though I accepted the base assumptions that the old testament stories were true, I attempted to rationally evaluate them in the context of themselves.
Even if you think you are a true believing, it is the development of those critical thinking skills that makes the difference. As you get later and later in life it becomes harder and harder to develop those skills if you don't have them already. If you don't have the critical thinking skills, you will stubbornly refuse any new inputs that contradict with existing knowledge in the same context. When the contexts are different, cognitive dissonance will come into play. If you do have critical thinking skills, you will actually evaluate knew information, and be open to changing even the deepest beliefs.
Even if you have believed in some bs your entire life, if you have the capability to think critically and rationally, you are an atheist who just doesn't know it. And when you are eventually presented with the rational arguments for atheism, and you actually try to evaluate them, you will realize you were atheist all along. If you don't have sufficient critical thinking skills, for one reason or another, you will believe what you believe, and will be a slave to your whim and feelings as opposed to reason. No amount of logical argument or evidence will change your thoughts. Even if you attempted to evaluate the arguments, you would fail to comprehend their logic. You might become a true believer in atheism, as by faith. But without the ability to come to the conclusion for yourself, it doesn't mean much.
Think of it in the context of mathematics. Three people come up to you. One person tells you that 1+1=2. Another tells you that 1+1=3. The third tells you that 1+1=11. If you are incapable of rational thought, you are going to pick one and stick with it. Your knowledge is on a foundation of assumptions. You accept those assumptions without question or thought, and build all other knowledge on top of them. You might be lucky and pick 1+1=2, but you would just be a true believer in the truth, as opposed to a true believer in a lie.
Now imagine if the same three people come to you, but you have the ability to think rationally and critically. You might lean towards 1+1=11. You might accept it, and even profess it. However, you have the ability to do your own proofs. At some point in our life, you are going to challenge that idea that 1+1=11. You will try to prove it. Someone will come up to you and present a proof that 1+1=2. You will evaluate that proof. You will find for yourself, with actual evidence and logic, not feelings, that this is true. And thus, you were never a true believer. The path of proof and reason leads in one direction. If you employ those tools, you will find the same path as all others, even if you walked another for a long time.
However, I disagree with your take on "True Believers" as once again you've reduced the concept down to something unusable, as there is no way that we can independently prove by outside observation the person's capacity for reason. I think the only test of someone being a true believer or not is if, when they privately ask something of themselves, they honestly think, with no hint of doubt, that what they think is the truth. What happens in the future is irrelevant. What they believe to be true, no matter how much they have thought or reasoned on the topic, is what they actually believe.
I'm not going to discuss it with you further, as I've promised my self never to bother. You are a true believer in your own intellect and superiority in discussions like this. Nothing I could say on this topic will make you change your mind.
Some people in their speech make it very clear that they are capable of thinking along certain patterns that we call rationality. Even Hacidic Jews will display their ability to think rationally when they become rules-lawyers. All of the crazy rules they follow are perfectly rational, they just all rest upon the false assumption that the old testament is the word of the one and only all-powerful deity. It's no different than a D+D player who assumes that words in the rule books are indisputable laws of the (fantasy) universe.
Other people in their speech make it clear they are incapable of thinking in a rational pattern. You can show them that the magician used a pair of fake legs to make it look like they cut a person in half. You can show them the entire trick being done from behind the scenes. However, they will continue to believe the magician truly has supernatural powers. You can argue with someone who only rebuts by quoting scripture. You can explain to them that their argument only holds if the scripture holds, and that the scripture is just a book like any other. They make an appeal to antiquity, and you explain to them that they are doing so, but they fail to comprehend. Older books must be more true than newer books! You ask them if old science like heat being a liquid is more true than modern science. Yet, they won't understand how that idea is related to the idea of the bible. They are incapable of thinking in the same patterns, and nobody appears able to teach them.
People like ourselves, Randi, Dawkins, and others have had these same conversations and arguments many times. It's anecdotal, but the quantities of anecdotes, and correlations between anecdotes are very numerous. Some people display some capacity to think rationally, even if they presently hold irrational beliefs. Other people do not display this capacity in any fashion, and no amount of effort or varying methodologies appears capable of granting them this ability.
If you do have the ability to reason, then you can not have true 100% faith in some external supernatural phenomenon. Your ultimate faith must be in your own mind, and your own thoughts. You believe that the things you reason for yourself are true more than you believe a book is true. Only someone who has no ability to reason whatsoever can fully put all of their faith into some external idea. And thus, only people who are devoid of rationality can be true believers. All others are rationalists who are some distance from arriving at (mostly) the same conclusions.
James Randi gets plenty of letters from people all the time about how his work has helped them to stop believing in bs crap. How they used to use fake medicine, but stopped. How they believed in psychics, but stopped. Yet, he still claims, as of a few weeks ago, that you can't change a true believer's mind. A true believer is someone who is hopeless. They never have, and never will, think in a rational fashion.
I made it very clear that religion threads are not banned. You must simply start by rebutting the flying spaghetti monster argument. Even if you fail to come up with even a shitty rebuttal, if you can at least demonstrate that you comprehend the argument itself, you will demonstrate that you have the capacity for rational thought. In demonstrating that capacity, you prove you are not a true believer, and that having a discussion with you is not a complete waste of everyone's time. If you believe, and yet are incapable of even understand what people mean when they compare god to a flying spaghetti monster, or space teapot, then there is no point in talking to you and filling up the forum with your lunacy.
The actions and words you assign to a true believer would have fitted me perfectly. I had arguments with my geography teacher about the age of the earth. God talked to me. I had real spiritual experiences and witnessed miracles first hand.
But I guess that wasn't enough. Oh well. I'm glad I'm not a Christian any more, because if I was I'd have to believe that people like me were going to hell.
This actually gives me an idea of a good example between a true believer and one who is not. If you're arguing about the age of the earth with someone, carbon dating is sure to come into question. The believer might claim that carbon dating is bullshit. Most of the time, this person will have no idea how carbon dating actually works. So you explain to them the actual science behind carbon dating. Once the rational thinker actually understands the science behind carbon dating they'll have a problem. They'll start thinking really hard, they'll retreat to some other topic. The true believer, however, will say something about god making carbon dating work that way on purpose to fool you. When you argue with enough people, you become able to tell how people are thinking, and you can tell whether someone is a true believer or not.
Again, you are making arguments about what was going on in my head. Aside from any future ability to reason, at the time I believed fully. That was all that mattered to me at the time. Belief is in the head. True belief is also in the head. I believed 100% that I would never not be a Christian and believe the same things. I almost died once, and was fine with it, knowing that I'd go to heaven. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.
Again, find my someone who is entirely without the ability to reason about anything and you'll be showing me someone in a constant vegetitive state. You've drawn the line based on your perceptions, and you've excluded every human being from ever having truly believing anything.
I'm not saying I didn't rationally criticize my beliefs, I certainly did. I've mentioned in other threads how I used to argue my theological views during bible studies.
But the rational part of my brain didn't impinge on my belief. I could use rational thinking in all kinds of way, in all kinds of areas in my life. I liked magic and loved seeing how tricks were done. I dismantled the claims of other religions, showing their logical flaws and laughing at how they could be so mistaken. This in no affected my own religious beliefs.
There is a way to compartmentalize areas of your life and your thoughts. It is possible for someone to believe 100% in the imminent return of Christ (no matter if they are pre- or post-tribulationists) and still get life insurance.
Don't tell me a true believer is in no way rational. I'll easily point out rational actions. Belief is something aside from that.
The thing I think you seem to not understand is there is a difference between someone acting rationally, and someone actually having real critical thinking and problem solving skills. These are rare skills I'm talking about there, not something that everyone has. I don't know if you've never met people like this, but there are plenty of them out there. They just don't get it.
Take for example another story from James Randi. It concerns faith healer Peter Popoff. He's a huge televangelist who has been raking in the dough for a long time. At one of his shows a woman in a wheelchair stood up and walked. They went and talked to the woman afterwards, and apparently she didn't need the wheelchair, she could always walk. They just told her to sit in the chair, and then told her to stand up. Of course the audience believed it was a miracle of faith healing.
Are you ready for the scary part? The woman who sat in the wheelchair, and stood up. Afterwards even she still fully believed that Popoff had healing powers.
Same guy, Peter Popoff. Of course he wears an earpiece radio, and is wife radios him information about the people in the audience. A typical trick of psychics and such. Someone went to his show with a scanner, and recorded the radio transmissions. Randi took those transmissions on to The Johnny Carson show and completely exposed Popoff. He's also exposed psychics like Uri Geller. You can see it all in this YouTube video.
Despite seeing this video, people still believe Popoff. Popoff is still raking it in even though he was exposed as a fraud decades ago.
We're not talking about faith in some god where you can't prove it yes or no. We're talking about things where they can be shown to be false with physical real world evidence. And we do show that physical real world contradictory evidence of falsehood to people, and their minds don't change. In decades of trying it has never worked. The true believer, with insufficient critical thinking skills, can not be swayed.
I think the reason you disagree with me is because you still have some faith that nobody is that dumb. People are this dumb. There are lots of them. Despair.
Just explain to me how your "No True Believer" argument is different from the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. No you've brought everything down to this:
Two sets:
A. Most people have rejected their irrational faith. These are not and have never been true believers.
B. Some people have not rejected their irrational faith. These people are true believers.
But when someone in set B becomes more rational and rejects their irrational faith, they are now part of set A. But then you say "Ah, but they weren't TRUE true believers.
It all comes down to the fact that some people will change their minds and some won't. And guess what, you've not gotany way how to tell those who may change their minds in the future apart from those who may not change their minds in the future.
Admit it, there is no way to tell future-non-true-believers apart from future-true-believers. What is the test?
Answer that question and I'll maybe consider your definition. So far you've provided no evidence except various anecdotes. But they believe that they believe 100%. This is my point. You can't make external tests on people's beliefs. Your rationality will pick holes in what they believe easier than a hot knife through butter. But to the believer, nothing matters except what they believe at the time.