How does one distinguish faith from delusion?

The experiences we're talking about are, themselves, inexplicit and ambiguous so its hard to describe them in the way you want them to be described. There's a difference between having a "waking vision" (which was involuntary) and voluntarily imagining an ethereal yellow squirrel. But yeah, the things you mention above are the kinds of things that people are talking about. Its nearly impossible to say. The experiences, themselves, don't seem to follow some kind of basis in the first place. We all sit around and talk to each other about our experiences and find the similarities and differences and try to figure out the best explaination for what we all are experiencing. That's not a simple guess.Although, since the results can't be empirically verified, if you only accept empirical verification as the method to measure the value of the explanation, then you're never going to see the results as anything better than a guess.But because the explaination seem to be the same as a guess to you does not mean that we are simply guessing.

If we weren't guessing, in this context, then we wouldn't need the faith... we would know. But that is different from a random guess. But you can't objectively demonstrate the superiority of one subjective conclusion over another. We can all try to figure it out together, but its going to come down to how you feel about the conclusion, yourself, to determine if you're just randomly guessing or not. How's that follow?You keep jumping to your favorite tautology and the 'all A is B therefore all B is A' fallacy.Just because there isn't an objective standard to determine the difference between one of these conclusions and a random guess doesn't mean that all the conclusions are random guesses.

I don't think we can.Similiarly, how do you distinguish brilliance from insanity?But just because we can't put our finger on the difference doesn't mean they are the same.

I'm gonna combine the posts.From Message 246But if the conclusions were reliable, then they'd be empirical/objective. How are you measuring the reliability? If I propose that god does exist, how are you going to test my proposal to see if it is reliable or not?Anyways, lets say that they're not less reliable. So what? I don't doubt that those readers might be seeing something real.(I'm agnostic towards them because I honestly don't know. But I can see that they differ from some randomly made-up phenomenon like the IPU. The simple fact that people actually believe in tea leaf reading is more evidence for that being true than something that someone made up that nobody believes in.) Fine, that's fine. And you stop acting like you can rationalize strong atheism with the IPU argument. Oh, wait. Spoke too soon.I have more evidence for god than I do for the IPU. How are you going to measure how much more reliable my conclusion is than a guess?From Message 247Possibly. Because its besides the point. And in the same way that our confirmation bias might cause us to accept too many things, you're denial bias will cause you to oppose too many, and we'll never come to an agreement on what we can and cannot accept. We don't really even have to go down that road for the purpose of the discussion. How do you measure the reliability of the suppositions that we can't even measure in the first place? You can define words however you want if it makes you feel more rational. I don't think so, and I think you're using the term "guessing" a little to loosely, but again, all I see is you trying to rationalize your position. Again you're being a little equivocal with that word "guessing".Lets say I hear a voice inside of me and I believe that it was god. I have evidence to deal with in that I heard the voice. I can use logic and reason to determine that it very well could have been god. And because I am convinced, and with a little faith, I say that I believe it was. How is this the same as taking a random guess? How are you measuring the accuracy to determine that it is no more reliable than a guess? You're letting your personal conviction persuade you that my subjective reasons are not evidence. Sure it makes sense. The way in which your "feeling" causes/allows you to make the decision on which envelope to pick is how it is evidenced. If you are not randomly picking, but instead allowing something else to pick for you, then which envelope you pick is not a guess but has been evidenced. That you only get 1 of 10 right doesn't necessitate that your "feeling" was a delusion. Try.

Wow... I wrote all that, answered your questions and you pick out just two lines. How disappointing. By what measurement am I going to determine this? How can I tell? Well, the post you replied to explained how it was better than simply guessing and you didn't answer my questions on how we can measure which one is more superior so I don't really know what you want me to do here. Are those even honest quesitons? So you ignore almost all of my post were I explain how I think the above is inaccurate and then you simply re-state your position!?I suppose this is exacly what LindaLou and RAZD were complaining about. Not really. I'm just saying that you shouldn't so desprately try to rationalize your atheism by equating all of the reasons poeple have for believing in god as delusion. You don't know that I cannot experience them and I've explained to you how they differ from guessing and, by definition, a personally convincing reason for a belief is evidence. I don't know, but you just made that up, didn't you? Its not about me providing you reasons to accept my indicator of reality. Its about explaining to you that me simply having this indicator makes my beliefs different from the IPU.You're just trying soooo hard to rationalize your atheism.

Other people's "guesses" are similiar to my own. I think we're on to something actual. How are you measuring that reliablility again?

You've lost me. Sorry.I'm not interested anymore.

Huh?I'm saying that when my and another's "guess" is similar then that adds weight to it possibly being correct. Nope. Us not being able to tell the difference doesn't necessitate them being equal. You can't even measure the superiority. If it could then it would be empirical already. Logic and reason lead us to the consensus that we're all on to something actual.

Oh fuck you asshole.You ignore my explanations and then claim victory because I haven't explained.You define "evidence" to be scientifically verifiable and then say that everything that is not scientifically verifiable is a "guess" so therefore if you can't verify it then there's no evidence and you are guessing.What ever makes you feel like you're being rational You seem very desperate to rationalize your atheism. And even militant in your refusal to even accept other poeple's explaination as a possibility.I think you're the one who is delusional.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Note: 24 hour suspension for this message