Finding God In The Waves

I doubt anybody thinks you're stupid Phat, but I refer you to the broken thinking skills thread. You are not applying you're intelligence in an intelligent way.Like most fundies, you can't think critically about religion mostly because of highly motivated thinking, but also because it seems that you - like almost every fundie I've ever met - have little education or formal training in how to do it.

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Motivated reasoning is a phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology that uses emotionally-biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence, while still reducing cognitive dissonance. In other words, motivated reasoning is the "tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe".[1] It can lead to forming and clinging to false beliefs despite substantial evidence to the contrary. The desired outcome acts as a filter that affects evaluation of scientific evidence and of other people.

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Motivated reasoning is similar to confirmation bias, where evidence that confirms a belief (which might be a logical belief, rather than an emotional one) is either sought after more or given more credibility than evidence that disconfirms a belief. It stands in contrast to critical thinking where beliefs are approached in a skeptical and unbiased fashion.

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Motivated reasoning - Wikipedia

It is more than just that; the CCoI educates and trains cult members to avoid critical thinking and to accept SOURCE over content, belief over evidence and fantasy over reality.It's not that they have not been educated on how to think but rather they are educated to avoid thinking.

Sure, first they're indoctrinated - give me a boy before the age of seven etc - then they're told to believe not critically evaluate.It's not that they don't think, god knows they do enormous amount of thinking, poor old Phat here never stops. It's just that the thinking is all about imagination. How many angels on a pinhead stuff. How can I make this primitive book make sense to me today?Even when they do apply thinking tools they corrupt them so that the answers meet their expectations, discarding all non-confirming data.

I dont think you understand. You claim that you were once a believer, after all....so what was it that you once "believed in"? Its NOT The Book. Its Jesus Christ. Jesus is as timely as todays news. He is not some ancient character limited to the Book. And I know you will patiently attempt to show me through logic, reason, and apparent reality that He is (and was) but I swear that you New Atheists can be every bit as fundamentalist, dogmatic, and stubborn as any "believer" ever was.I'm about done arguing around this place. Perhaps you all were meant to forevermore be unbelievers. Many of you joined jars little church of Logic, Reason, & Reality and kept your brains in full functional mode, partaking of Communion only with evidence and throwing any God characters whom interacted with you on a daily basis firmly and finally away. Maybe I will be better off limiting myself to an administrative role here, weeding out spammers and giving Moose and Percy a bit of a break.I have said before that EvC sharpens me, and I dont deny that it has. The faulty conclusion that many of you draw, however, is that *anyone* who honestly employs critical thinking skills will follow the conclusion that many (if not most) of you have followed. And I won't. It would be rude of me to throw away God as I know Him. And perhaps fatal.But lets get to the book, shall we? Edited by Phat, : fuller explanation of my stubborn and dogmatic way.

Phat, this is precisely the reason to question your intellect. Or at least question your lack of use of the intellect god gave you.Despite your protestations there is nothing there. The evidence of reality, from the cosmos thru the history of religion in our species, to the revealed spurious nature of holy books and their miracles, all lead inevitably to the conclusion that religion is a human construct with no viability.The priests got to you early and turned off your BullShit Meter^TM before feeding you their catechism. You need to turn it back on and calibrate it to reality.No one is trying to force you into believing "our way" but there is a mental roadblock in your thinking keeping you tied to some 3000 year old myths. It is time to cast off those chains.

It's only the book. Without the NT book you'd be Jewish. Only to a few. For others it's some other daydream. For me it's nothing. Er, he is. Otherwise you'd be able to produce the guy. I was an atheist for decades before the term new atheist was invented, but that aside, I'm sure we can be - it's just that our positions can be backed by evidence and are grounded in reality. This is just nonsense. 'In communion with evidence? You're so stuck in your own religious bubble that you can't even imagine how the non-religous think and feel; you can't apply religious language to how we think, it doesn't work. No thanksBtw, remember saying this? Its NOT The Book.

I don't think anybody here expects that. Some people will remain deluded.

Its not the Good Book. It IS Mike McHargues Book. And its a darn good one. He is no slouch.

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I didn’t know this at the time, but all those hours I spent researching and analyzing God were beginning to rewire the neurological network that made up my faith. If we think back to our brains as a large business or political organization, all my reading and studying was causing layoffs in the offices and departments of those whose job it was to make me feel the presence of God. Every day, a few more employees were let go, resulting in more empty offices with the lights turned off. Before the president knew it, there was no one left in the entire organization helping me know God.

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And that's where belief comes in. You are so stuck in your thinking that you relegate God to a character in a book and then focus on the angry God, which you then dismissed conclusively. This book talks about all that.As ringo says based on his dimestore analysis from a quote on Amazon, McHargue did originally embrace Faith (faking it much of the way since he didnt allow his brain to be parked at the front door) primarily to get the girl...his future wife.

So the "dimestore analysis" was accurate.

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It IS Mike McHargues Book. And its a darn good one. He is no slouch

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That’s not really in evidence in the quote. Indeed the idea of layoffs in the brain makes no sense at all. Let alone the idea that reading and studying could cause that.Whether this is simple anti-intellectualism or a plea for people to remain ignorant and deceived is hard to tell.Edited by PaulK, : Deleted rogue ‘}’

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We are each free to believe what we want, and it's my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate.

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I didn’t know this at the time, but all those hours I spent researching and analyzing God were beginning to rewire the neurological network that made up my faith. If we think back to our brains as a large business or political organization, all my reading and studying was causing layoffs in the offices and departments of those whose job it was to make me feel the presence of God. Every day, a few more employees were let go, resulting in more empty offices with the lights turned off. Before the president knew it, there was no one left in the entire organization helping me know God.

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An amazing example of stringing a whole bunch of words together yet being able to eep out any meaning or sense or substance or value or worth.Yes, the man is definitely a craftsman who knows exactly the perfect presentation preferred at the CCoI Salad Bar.How anyone could read that without laughing is very very very hard to imagine.

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Said Stephen Hawking

Don't be too quick to judge the author as "just another apologist". You can point out word salad where you see it, however. The author provides some core definitions which he presumably believes to be useful. (Taken from the Acknowledgments}

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FAITH is at least a way to contextualize the human need for spirituality and to find meaning in the face of mortality. Even if this is all faith is, spiritual practices can be beneficial to human cognition, emotions, and culture.

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GOD is at least the natural forces that created and sustain the universe as experienced via a psycho-social model in human brains that naturally emerges from innate biases. Even if that is a comprehensive definition of God, the pursuit of this personal, subjective experience can provide meaning, peace,and empathy for others.

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PRAYER is at least a form of meditation that encourages the development of healthy brain tissue, that reduces stress, and that can connect us to God. Even if that is a comprehensive definition of prayer, the health and psychological benefits of prayer justify the discipline.

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SIN is at least volitional action or inaction that violates human consent or produces human suffering. Sin comes from the divergent impulses between our lower and higher brain functions and our evolution-driven tendency to do things that serve ourselves and our tribe. Even if this is all sin is, it is destructive and threatens human flourishing.

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THE AFTERLIFE is at least the persistence of our physical matter in the ongoing life cycle on Earth, the memes we pass on to others, and our unique neurological signature in the brains of those who knew us. Even if this is all the afterlife is, the consequences of our actions persist beyond our death and our ethical considerations must include a time line beyond our death.

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There are five more which I might bring up later. Any word salad there, O Critic?

Lots of utter nonsense though.The Faith statement is pretty much meaningless and can also be applied to almost anything.The same is true of GOD. You could substitute mashed potatoes for GOD and it would have the same value, relevance and meaning."PRAYER is at least a form of meditation that encourages the development of healthy brain tissue, that reduces stress, and that can connect us to God. " is another totally unsupported assertion used as though anything in it were actually fact. Another easy sell to the rubes."Sin comes from the divergent impulses between our lower and higher brain functions and our evolution-driven tendency to do things that serve ourselves and our tribe." is just bullshit. There is no such thing as lower and higher brain functions and the second part is just silly.Again, #5 is just word salad and platitudes. "Even if this is all the afterlife is, the consequences of our actions persist beyond our death and our ethical considerations must include a time line beyond our death." Of course actions can have consequences that last a long time but that has jackshit to do with any afterlife. Sorry but that is simply a really stupid comment and the fact you or anyone else even considers it for a second a sad reflection on reading comprehension and the ability to think.