Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyboosh
What I'm trying to describe is not as simple as the 'model' that you have shown to be false but I'll admit I'm struggling to present a coherent and better organised version of it. I'm not going to post again until I think I have something like that.
Whilst doing some research, I came across this article about Beliefs - Why Bad Beliefs Don’t Die. If it were a post I'm sure you'd TL;DR it but if you have a few minutes to spare I think it's worth a read and I'd be interested in your opinion of it.
Apologies for the snarky response, but I feel it is going to help you more than a longer more friendly approach:
That article uses examples of belief as cognitive 'maps' of the sensory world outside direct sensory experience. For example, beliefs can represent the physical dangers outside of a cave even when ones direct sensory experience (inside the cave) contains no danger.
Well, this is an empirical, falsifiable model of belief so by your own argument, it cannot be used to support any theory about religious, un-falsifiable beliefs. Apples and oranges innit.
Same for the article you linked about vaccination dangers. The danger (or lack of danger) of vaccinations is an empirical, falsifiable belief, so any results of that study cannot be applied to religious, un-falsifiable belief.
You know, the major problem here is not that you failed to realise that your best response was to point out that - according to the studies you've read - empirical beliefs actually can be influenced by repetitions. The problem is that you are wildly inconsistent, if not hypocritical. You are perfectly happy to cite experiments on empirical beliefs and then make inferences from those to non-empirical beliefs IFF it suits your criticism of religion. If it doesn't suit you, then suddenly you are of the mind that non-empirical beliefs are "apples and oranges" to empirical beliefs. The same goes for virtually all your other arguments in RGT. You will adopt a particular epistemology/metaethics/etc when it suits your anti-theism and just as quickly swap it for another when a different anti-theist argument calls for it.
For example, you have been happy to adopt consequentialist morality when it allows you to say "religion is a net negative". But you explicitly deny consequentialism and adopt deontology when you want to say "it is always wrong to tell children that something is true when it might not be, even if the consequences are good". Then when challenged - in the same thread! - about the coherence of that view, you switch to cultural relativism.
Another example is that if an article even hints at a positive story on religion, you then claim that it must be an example of a pro-religion agenda. But when a news source prints a negative article about religion, you focus entirely on the content of that story, and have no questions about whether the author is pushing an atheist agenda.