How it looks: Miracles, theism and children

[squitmaa]

Great video. I apreciate your honest aproach. You are absolutely correct about the notion of religion and children. However I see a problem with your conclusion that people are born atheists. We are born with a lack of knowledge. Someone who does not know would be considered an agnostic. Knowledge is gained by experience. With experience we ask the question is this benifitial to me or society or existance. A person becomes an atheist when they see no benifit in a God belief.

[bitbutter]

hi squitmaa thanks for the comment.

There is a sense of the word atheist in which a baby fits this descriptor. Here i'm taking about implicit atheism--a lack of god belief before the question of the existence of god has even been encountered (i think i messed up in the vid and called it weak atheism which is a slightly diff thing).

[HumbleOrthodox]

Thanks for the clarification, BitButter, but I'm sorry, it appears you still make a lot of unjustified claims yourself. In the process of claiming some sort of circularity with religious belief or acceptance, you also don't seem to think it can be applied equally to a "rationally independant person", which I assume here you mean an agnostic.

I'll be making a response soon; this one will be far more detailed in explanation. Thanks for the video.

[bitbutter]

Hi, looking forward to the vid. By intellectually independent person i mean someone with a belief set mature enough to no longer trust everything they are told by their guardians. Most of the time in this vid i talk about an intellectually independent person who does not have a pre-existing theistic belief (a weak atheist). It's my thesis that a person in this situation cannot rationally accept a biblical miracle claim.

[PopeJohnEdgarIV]

Well explained, good video.

One of the most important things to teach a child is to think for themselves and question.

[bitbutter]

Thanks. Absolutely. The difficulty of course is that someone who genuinely believes in a religious fairytale will not want to run the risk of their child ending up in hell, from this perspective indoctrination is the morally correct thing to do. (Any religion who's doctrines emphasised the idea that kids shouldn't be indoctrinated wouldn't be around today).

[PopeJohnEdgarIV]

Anyone who genuinely believes that something is so obviously right should have full confidence in their child making the 'right' decision and chosing to agree with the parents belief. After all, if they are indisputably right then there is no real risk of the religion becoming non-existant!

[bitbutter]

The existence of atheists and people of other religions is enough to demonstrate that not everyone is lukcy enough to 'see the light of christianity'. Indoctrination is a way of making sure that their own kids end up among the damned.

[ALogicalConstruct]

I view rationality as breaking away from evolutionary glitches: from an evolutionary standpoint is it better to mistake a shadow for a tiger or a tiger for a shadow. I see religion as a product of the natural selection of memeplexes who's origin are psychological glitches created by genetic evolution.

[bitbutter]

I agree. And I think this perspective recognises the naturalistic fallacy: the mistaken idea that what is natural is therefore good.

[trondreitan]

Well argued and very well illustrated. As a statistician, I would define belief by probabilities for various claims based on the knowledge already available and rationality as consistent updating of such probabilities. As such, theists can be 100% rational all their adult life, but differ from the rest in having soaked up unfounded beliefs (prior probabilities) early in their childhood. That's just my way of rephrasing your video, I guess. Probably, your description is better for most purposes.

[bitbutter]

Yes, thats exactly how I see it too; and it's why i think that attempts to draw attention to the irrationality of religious belief often get it slightly wrong (as i've done in the past too).

[ALogicalConstruct]

If a child were left to their own devices, without any guidance, my assumption would be that they would establish an animistic type set of spiritual beliefs given the propensity humans have to personify forces and objects. It appears to me that these tendencies are hardwired into the brain, along with the assumption that other humans are self aware--which doesn't end with that persons death, leading to a belief in a soul.

[bitbutter]

Hi ALC. Yes i think so too. I think this is what humbleorthodox points to as lending support to the idea that atheist is not the default state (though i think he's mistaken about that ;)).

[ALogicalConstruct]

The basic religion, based on results, is animism which would mean that if we want to look to a possible a priori grasp of spirituality as proof of supernatural truth all non-animist religions are false.

[bitbutter]

And there's another thing that also strengthens an intuitive sense that theism is correct: we can never experience the causes of our thoughts before we think them, so we mistakenly assume that they are uncaused: this paves the way for the primacy of consciousness view, and belief in disembodied creative consciousnesses (like God).

[ALogicalConstruct]

That was very well put. Religion is a bit of a joke when you look at it critically. I find it amazing that the tribal belief system of the Israelites as come to dominate the western hemisphere.

[maksiiiskam2]

I liked it, one thing though: your "amazingometer" seems to be critical thinking that is entirely based on intuition: Newton mechanic is less amazing that relativity, for instance, but we know that the other explains more facts and it is why we think it true.

[bitbutter]

hi m. Once we've got rid of the idea that our intuitions are always an accurate reflection of the way the world is (an idea quickly defeated when we experience illusions and make other perceptual mistakes) then the way is cleared to rationally prefer relativity over newtonian mechanics (and to favour other non-intuitive solutions over more 'common-sense' ones).

[bitbutter]

I think you're right that the word 'amazing' can cause confusion sometimes when used this way.

Do you think the way i defined it in this vid: "amazing claims are the ones that require the biggest adjustments to a persons belief set" gives a problem for 'rationally' accepting relativity over newtonian physics? I didn't think so, but i'm not very knowledgeable about that stuff.

[UnBeguiled]

Good stuff. This comes down to whether we accept an external authority or whether we accept our own sensory experience as the only valid authority.

For me, when as a child the truth claims of religion conflicted with my own experience of reality, I rejected the religious claims.

The Christian of course would assert that I have committed the ultimate sin.

[UnBeguiled]

I am as I am. It is my nature to be skeptical of any truth claim that is in conflict with my experience of reality.

Perhaps for the theist, acceptance of authority is their nature.

[bitbutter]

thanks ub. I'd say that most christians are sensibly skeptical of authority too--but what they have been unable to do so far is to reassess the religious claims they accepted when they were too young to know better, and see where that reassessment leads (but in their defense, i think that can be a very difficult thought experiment to carry out if you have 'actively' believed in god for most of your life).

[UnBeguiled]

I agree that as adults theists are skeptical of most authority. But they must remain submissive to some ultimate authority, whether that is a book, a religious person or institution, or simply their own intuition of God.

What has interested me lately is not whether one world view is false and the other true, but rather why is it that we fall into these different views of reality. Could I have had an experience as a child that would make me accept supernaturalism?

[bitbutter]

Since theism is--at base--very much a top-down arrangement I guess we shouldn't be surprised if authority plays a more important role in the attitudes of theists generally.

[UnBeguiled]

I don't think the role of an external authority can be downplayed.

In Christianity, the fall of man is the foundation of the whole system. The transition from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of acquiring knowledge on our own is the first story told.

I know less about Islam, but submissiveness is foundational in that system as well.

[bitbutter]

Yes. I cut a chunk out of the original vid that talked about why religious beliefs are diff from 'regular' beliefs: they have evolved built-in defenses against being supplanted by contradictory truth claims.

The idea that trusting human reason above divine authority (to which the proper response is submission) is an act of hubris, is one of those defenses.

[UnBeguiled]

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight."

"Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason."

- Martin Luther

[randyhelzerman]

Excellent production values. Very effective use of animation!! This is the best video on the subject I've ever seen. The only thing I would say is that "irrational change of belief" isn't always a bad thing; the same sort of conversion process is necessary to, say, stop believing that homosexuality is a sin.

[bitbutter]

hi randy, thanks very much for the kind words :) I agree that irrational belief can have positive consequences. I hope that most atheists and theists have in common the desire to be rational when it comes to evaluating truth claims, and that none of us are comfortable with the idea that a belief we have might not pass rational muster if we re-evaluate it (even if the outcome might be positive).