Yes, thanks to my lessons here at forumosa I have come to believe that nothing is insane. Indeed the dim glow of humanities persistant sanity has become a sort of guiding light, over the past few hours at least, and with any luck at all it won’t lead me to the Zhongshan Bridge and my date with destiny and hello kitty.
Yes, thanks to my lessons here at forumosa I have come to believe that nothing is insane. Indeed the dim glow of humanities persistant sanity has become a sort of guiding light, over the past few hours at least, and with any luck at all it won’t lead me to the Zhongshan Bridge and my date with destiny and hello kitty.[/quote]
Suicidal tendencies or just morbid anticipation? Some would say that your lack of faith is responsible for this, either it’s one or the other. I think it’s just reality overdose…
[quote=“bob”]Most people are perfectly sane and live balanced happy lives in accordance with their deepest spiritual nature. There is no wholesale destruction of the planet going on as “wholesale destruction” is a subjective term and not subject to rational analysis. Our societies are not rife with violence, drug addiction and dysfunction. Everyone is happy.[/quote]Absolutely… 
irony meter on or off?
sometimes its hard to tell.
insanity is hereditary. you catch it from your kids. or your parish priest.
I’ve met some insane people. For a short time I was staying in the same house as pair of gentlemen who were schizophrenic. They had the doctor’s appointments and medication to prove it. Nice guys, but sometimes they just did not see reality.
And when I say, see reality, I mean we’d be watching the same news broadcast and one of them would ask me if the newscaster had said his name. Just to make sure. I’d say no, but he’d be convinced that the broadcaster was talking directly to him with some side comments. Sort of like with Michael Douglas in “The Game”. He’d get a little upset, but then someone would tell him to take his medication, he’d do it, and things would get back to normal.
One of these guys was intensely interested in physics and astronomy. His favorite subject was dark matter, and he knew more about it than most people. But when he thought he had dark matter stuck in his head we knew it was time to tell him to take his meds. For while we couldn’t actually see dark matter and couldn’t prove it didn’t exist in the room we were in, we did know that if it was in his head he would be dead.
Yes. There is insanity. And it is when there is a clear and obvious disconnect with observable reality.
Is that a Cosplay reference?
On a personal note, I hope you don’t feel I am being overly rude to you. That isn’t my intent. My posts towards what you have written haven’t been very positive, but I don’t mean the negativity towards you-- just your position. And I hope you understand why I’m pretty solidly against you thinking I’m partially insane.
[quote=“R. Daneel Olivaw”]Yes. There is insanity. And it is when there is a clear and obvious disconnect with observable reality.
On a personal note, I hope you don’t feel I am being overly rude to you. That isn’t my intent. My posts towards what you have written haven’t been very positive, but I don’t mean the negativity towards you-- just your position. And I hope you understand why I’m pretty solidly against you thinking I’m partially insane.[/quote]
Well you all us belivers in god can be considered insane then by your top statement.
Bein rude crude obtuse and negative is not an issue.
We wouldn’t dare think you were partially insane. It’s a totality of insaness you have there RDO.
I mean after all robots don’t belve in god too do they?
Well you all us belivers in god can be considered insane then by your top statement.[/quote]
Look, if you want to persist in that sort of stupidity, go right on ahead. I’ve explained clearly enough why such a statement is utterly false. If you want to persist in saying it then there’s something wrong with you.
Sat TV, your participation on this thread (as opposed to the atheist one where you did contribute something) has never been constructive. Your whole reason for being here has been to belittle and continue to argue. You aren’t interested in discussing theistic beliefs, just mocking them. If I’m wrong about that you can’t really blame me since that’s all I’ve seen from you on this entire thread.
My comments about hoping I didn’t seem rude were for Bob, not you. Unless you and Bob are one. Then maybe that would be evidence in support of the Trinity.
That’s the whole point, though, isn’t it? YOU (or maybe I should say theists) think you’ve explained that you have no disconnect from observable reality, but the problem is, non-theists just see the explanations as rubbish and that belief in a god IS a complete disconnect from reality.
There sure isn’t anything you’ve written so far that makes me think “hmmm, he has a point.”
It’s not science, it’s faith. If you think you’re not disconnected from reality, then that’s fine. The fact is, though, that you are, whether you like it or not.
There’s no observable reality in religion. That’s the whole point of it. It’s all about faith.
There might not be any observable reality, but I don’t think it means one is insane based on his faith for something that is not observable.
The way I read it, bob’s take on “insanity” is not limited to theists. I don’t think bob blames theists for global warming, wars, violence, drug addictions, etc.
[quote=“joshini”]There might not be any observable reality, but I don’t think it means one is insane based on his faith for something that is not observable.
The way I read it, bob’s take on “insanity” is not limited to theists. I don’t think bob blames theists for global warming, wars, violence, drug addictions, etc.[/quote]
Not bob, no. Its RDO who claims that insanity is a disconnect from observable reality. I personally wouldn’t say that’s a sign of insanity, as you’d then have to include anyone who believes in gods as being insane, which I don’t think they are – being a bit silly isn’t the same as being insane, after all.
It’s very simple.
Observable reality is what you can see or otherwise observe. I cannot see God in the room I am in. I don’t claim to be able to see God. If I did think I saw God and there were other witnesses who say they saw the same thing and there was no God, then I would be delusional, and if I persisted in this delusion it would be insanity.
You cannot “observe” that there is no God because of the limitations of human observational powers. Even if assuming there is no God, you still can’t observe it. You can only observe that fraction of reality that is within the scope of your perceptions.
Therefore, theistic belief is not a disconnect from observable reality.
However, I may have made an error in my definition.
I don’t know where I read this definition of insanity, but I didn’t make it up. I just checked, and it seems my insistence that “insanity”=“disconnect with observable reality” is not in accordance with the dictionary. But doing a Google search with the terms “insanity” and “disconnect from reality” will reveal that this is a popularly held way of looking at the definition.
Having said that, there is a definition under which a person can regard theism as “insane”. It is that of being “extreme folly; senselessness; foolhardiness”. But by that same definition a theist can say that atheism is insane-- although I wouldn’t. So, what’s the point?
So I will concede this- if Bob wants to call theists insane meaning extremely foolish, I cannot show logically that it is patently false. It’s too subjective of a use of the term. However, I will reply that Bob is acting insanely by making such a statement.
You were a little quick to dismiss the post below yes.
God either spoke or he didn’t and I think that I have made a pretty good case for the possibility that he didn’t and that people either hallucinated the whole thing or made it up. It is a rational proposition based on what we know about people’s motivations, anxieties, hopes etc as well as their tendency to lie, hallucinate and engage in deluded thinking. These religious beliefs in which millions of people believe to have available “the actual word of god - creator of the universe” is an example of a mass, societal delusion mixed in with some lies, a little weak logic, and a lot of people who go along despite not “really” believing any of it.
Perhaps you would like to respond again to the following…
Sandman: Can you or any other atheist demonstrate that there is no God? Something I can observe? We’re talking about observable reality, not just what you believe about reality.
Bob, I stand by my arguments. I don’t think you have made any rational point. It’s all based on your opinion.
If you don’t want me to dismiss it then you need to show logically how it is a delusion. It is not readily apparent how this is so.
If you wish.
I don’t believe that is true at all. Even if you mean “foolishness” I don’t believe so. People’s beliefs are generally consistent with reality as far as they are able to observe, but not usually grounded in science. We don’t have time to use science on everything we encounter. Science is too slow and our lives are too short.
But that doesn’t lead to insanity. It might lead to mistakes, false beliefs, but these false beliefs are usually caused by heuristics. When confronted with indisputable, overwhelming evidence we change our beliefs. And those two words “indisputable” and “overwhelming” are central to that statement.
There is overwhelming evidence in support of theism. But it is disputable. Thus, it is not irrational to disbelieve in theism based on the evidence.
Also, seems your views are taking on a stronger Buddhist influence. People don’t all start looking forward to suffering and death. Some do, but others live in the moment, others look forward to life optimistically and find enjoyment and happiness. That is one aspect of Buddhism that I strongly disagree with.
As I said earlier, I agree with that. But my belief is grounded in my theistic belief. It would be good to discuss.
Again, you left out option #1 and combinations of #1, #2, and #3. You don’t believe #1, but that lack of belief doesn’t mean that’s not truly what happened.
I was joking with the “you just made gao_bo_han’s point” remark. I put a smiley there.
So you’re saying that because someone thought up an idea and it “might” be true, even though nobody’s ever seen it, then that’s enough for you? Fair enough. Not nearly enough for me though. There’s a giant floppy penis that hops about in the sky, by the way, and it does things to people. To me, that’s equally believable to the idea of gods, i.e. totally unbelievable.
So you’re saying that because someone thought up an idea and it “might” be true, even though nobody’s ever seen it, then that’s enough for you?[/quote]
Nope. Just saying it isn’t insane. There’s no conflict with what they see. They aren’t seeing things.
And, as I’ve said earlier, what you described is irrational. If nobody has ever seen it and there is no other evidence then it is an irrational belief. But that is not the case with theism.
Show me someone who claims to have seen the giant floppy penis, or a number of flight attendants who “felt the giant floppy penis” inside them and I’ll accept that such a belief is rational for those people who believe. But I wouldn’t believe it myself. Not enough evidence. But I would think it fine for them.
There you go, then. In the case of gods, there isn’t ANY evidence whatsoever, though.
There you go, then. In the case of gods, there isn’t ANY evidence whatsoever, though.[/quote]
Yes, there is.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]I think the question is:
- Were the Biblical authors really in communication with, or inspired by, a supernatural being who identified himself as Yahweh?
I concur with RDO that we have no evidence whatsoever to conclude the Biblical authors were insane. To the contrary, insane people do not write cohesive narratives about multiple historical events, explaining in detail names, places, battles, the rise and fall of kingdoms, even the specific genealogies of dozens of families.
[/quote]
I read an interview with Stephan King once where he said that he would regularly write while on acid. While his books are obviously not claiming to be religious, they do have coherent thought, plotting and detail. Terrance McKenna, an ethnobotanist, put forth a theory that all major changes in human society came about as a result of ingesting psylocybin mushrooms.
While it’d be close to impossible for the clinically insane to come up with the various religious stories, it’d be in the realms of possibility that the original oral traditions could have come about due to hallucinogens, wouldn’t it?
There you go, then. In the case of gods, there isn’t ANY evidence whatsoever, though.[/quote]
Yes, there is.[/quote]
No there isn’t. There are stories and claims. That isn’t evidence.
Yes, it is evidence.
Stories where you don’t know if the story is intended to be true or not is not evidence. Stories which purport to be testimony of actual events is evidence.
Firsthand testimony of evidence is strong evidence. Secondhand testimony is hearsay, but even that is evidence. It just is not allowed in court because it doesn’t measure up to the standards of admissibility for court.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
You can argue about the quality and the reliability of the evidence, but if you want to say it doesn’t exist you are experiencing a disconnect with reality…