I have no doubt that this is true, and I am not suggesting that religious people are necessarily one-dimensional. But I believe that they find sanctuary and refuge from critical thought in their faith. By definition, faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. If there was incontrovertible proof, then faith would not be required. Faith implies complete confidence and strong conviction without doubt or question. Look it up. It is uncharacteristic that highly intelligent people with excellent critical faculties would have blind faith in anything. Unless, of course, it serves as a refuge, downtime, and a means of unwinding from the stresses of the world we live in. This is just my opinion, and is not intended to be disrespectful towards anyone.
this is a good read that explains how otherwise smart people cant give up their belief even when all of the evidence points the other way. http://www.skepdic.com/truebeliever.html true-believer syndrome The need to believe in phony wonders sometimes exceeds not only logic but, seemingly, even sanity. --The Rev. Canon William V. Rauscher The true-believer syndrome merits study by science. What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it's exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it--indeed, clings to it all the harder? --M. Lamar Keene True-believer syndrome is an expression coined by M. Lamar Keene to describe an apparent cognitive disorder characterized by believing in the reality of paranormal or supernatural events after one has been presented overwhelming evidence that the event was fraudulently staged. Keene is a reformed phony psychic who exposed religious racketeering--to little effect, apparently. Phony faith healers, psychics, channelers, televangelist miracle workers, etc., are as abundant as ever. Keene believes that "the true-believer syndrome is the greatest thing phony mediums have going for them" because "no amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie." That those suffering from true-believer syndrome are consciously lying to themselves hardly seems likely, however. Perhaps from the viewpoint of a fraud and hoaxer, the mark who is told the truth but who continues to have faith in you must seem to believe what he knows is a lie. Yet, this type of self-deception need not involve lying to oneself. To lie to oneself would require admission that one believes what one knows is false. This does not seem logically possible. One can't believe or disbelieve what one knows. (Belief is distinct from belief in, which is a matter of trust rather than belief.) Belief and disbelief entail the possibility of error; knowledge implies that error is beyond reasonable probability. I may have overwhelming evidence that a "psychic" is a phony, yet still believe that paranormal events occur. I may be deceiving myself in such a case, but I don't think it is correct to say I am lying to myself. It is possible that those suffering from true-believer syndrome simply do not believe that the weight of the evidence before them revealing fraud is sufficient to overpower the weight of all those many cases of supportive evidence from the past.
No offence taken and you make some good points. I would however challenge you to think about this! You assume that Faith should always be unproven or imeasurable BUT I would strongly disagree MANY people of Faith are there because of personal real experiences that proved their Faith, well beyond doubt. Just because you can't measure it scientifically doesn't mean it's any less real. Can you measure or see the love you have for a child or spouse? but it's very real.
A few Dawkins quotes ... The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. -- Richard Dawkins, "God's Utility Function," published in Scientific American (November, 1995), p. 85 I believe that an orderly universe, one indifferent to human preoccupations, in which everything has an explanation even if we still have a long way to go before we find it, is a more beautiful, more wonderful place than a universe tricked out with capricious ad hoc magic. -- Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. -- Richard Dawkins, excerpt from Chapter I, "The Anaesthetic of Familiarity," of Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1998) Find a large open space and take a soccer ball to represent the sun. Put the ball down and walk ten paces in a straight line. Stick a pin in the ground. The head of the pin stands for the planet Mercury. Take another 9 paces beyond Mercury and put down a peppercorn to represent Venus. Seven paces on, drop another peppercorn for Earth. One inch away from earth, another pinhead represents the Moon, the furthest place, remember, that we've so far reached. 14 more paces to little Mars, then 95 paces to giant Jupiter, a ping-pong ball. 112 paces further, Saturn is a marble. No time to deal with the outer planets except to say that the distances are much larger. But, how far would you have to walk to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri? Pick up another soccer ball to represent it, and set off for a walk of 4200 miles. As for the nearest other galaxy, Andromeda, don't even think about it! Who'd go back to astrology when they've sampled the real thing -- astronomy...? -- Richard Dawkins, in "Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder," The Richard Dimbleby Lecture, BBC1 Television (12 November 1996) The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite. -- Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1998)
For all of the so-called highly educated traders that frequent this forum, I find it hard to believe the level of animosity this discussion brings forth. This is truly what organized religion is best suited for: turning people against each other in the name of supporting a power stucture, local or global, through inclusion or disenfranchisment of the individual. All religions derive their power from the human fear of the unknown and assigning human emotions and feelings to an eternity in the after life. These rationalizations are the only way we have to contemplate and understand the ultimate unknown: What happens to us when we die? It's this simple: If being deeply religious or spiritual makes you a more peaceful, happy and satisfied person then follow that path. Personally, my greatest happiness has come from doing something out of 'the goodness of my heart' that helped someone and made them happy. This has nothing to do with money or gift buying, but with with love for another human brother or sister. The fact that I derive my living from trading currencies has nothing to do with my spirituality. In fact, it's the opposite. My spirituality keeps me calm and grounded in times of stress in the marketplace. I see very few words of encouragement from any of the posters in this thread. That is truly pathetic and gives traders a bad name. My hope is that mankind will one day have patience and tolerance for each other, but from the bickering in this forum discussion I'm not holding my breath.
you are right. religion is the ultimate "us against them" mindset. the whole iraq war boils down to this simple mindset.
I think that many of the "people of faith" you refer to who believe because of "personal real experiences that proved their faith well beyond doubt" probably didn't require a lot of convincing. For example, I have an aunt in Europe who believes in ghosts. Whenever her house creaks at night, that is all the "proof" she needs. Others have had their "epiphany" when when a religious statue appeared to be either crying or bleeding (due to faulty construction or something more insidious). Perhaps someone marvelled at the beauty of nature during a particularly warm and sunny day, and decided that there was more, and so connected the dots. Perhaps someone "miraculously" survived a serious auto accident, and that was all the "proof" they needed. What about the people who didn't fare as well? "There but for the grace of God, go I." Well, what about that other guy? Why was he forgotten? Some people would rather believe that they were the beneficiaries of a benevolent deity than that they survived some ordeal due to random circumstance. And, frankly, that's a bit presumptuous. It implies we are better, or more favored by an unseen and unmeasurable god than the less fortunate among us. Talk about insult to injury for the downtrodden! I think that your reference to something being real even though it cannot be measured is not a good argument for your case. You used love as an example. Love is real to the extent that it is manufactured by the person who feels it. It is an emotion, rather than a sovereign entity (of mythical origin). It comes about by a combination of thoughts and experiences. Emotions are real to the extent that people create and then feel them. The same cannot be said of a deity in the literal sense. In fact, I think we can measure love with far more accuracy than the alleged existence of any deity. When you see how someone gives of himself or herself for a child, how they will sacrifice to ensure that their child will have a better chance at a good life, then you will have seen unconditional love. Alleged deities give far more mixed "signals." I'm sorry, but I will have to side with vhehn, nononsense and a few of the others in this thread on this matter, albeit in a kinder and gentler way.
EVERYONE GOES TO HELL: Most religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one religion, it logically follows that all souls go to Hell. This notion is personally disappointing to me, since I was hoping that at least in hell I might finally escape all the obnoxious religious zealots.