Reductionism in Action

this starts in the middle of an argument on my religious experience arguments. From the CARM board and illustrates some well worn ploys that reductionists use.

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Originally Posted by souper genyus The fact that something makes you happy, comforted, content, complete, etc. is no reason to suggest it's true.

 Meta:

It's not a matter of happy. see you are trying to reduce it. you are losing the phenomena which what (all that) reduction every accomplishes. You are taking a complex argument about co-determinate and turning it into "It makes me happy so it must be true" I wonder why you do that? I can't believe you are not subtel enough to understand the more sophisticated argument, so you must somehow think that reducing the meaning until you lose what's said then attack the remaining straw man is the proper way to conduct an argument.

It's an argument from sign. I admit those are not always good to make but it's not a fallacy a priority. It's not argument begin happy either.

life transformation is a hell of a lot more than just happy.

the point is that it works because it does what religion is supposed to do. That makes criticizing it very pointless. After all what are you criticizing but the thing in line anyone ever found? That's not exactly an elegant solution.

now if I said "I can prove the existence of god" the yes you would have a point. But since I said "I can show it's rationally warranted" you have no case at all. Because it is rational to stick with something that works and that revolutionizes your life and basically gives you the great existential touchdown that every one is really looking for.

That's a rational reason to believe and the fact that it fits the criteria by which we determine reality is an even better reason. That in itself is a totally valid reason to believe the reality of an experience, because we use the same criteria to determine the validity of all experience, and experience is the bedrock of everything we think about reality.

Quote:Super Genyus

That's wishful thinking, plain and simple. Things do work that way. That's why nonsense like astrology, psychics, mediums, etc. all are horribly prevalent. These things give comfort.

 Meta
In addition to reducing it to the point of the phenomena loss you are also arguing from analogy and a little bit guilt by association. Lump it in with BS like astrology despite the fact that it has vast amounts of empirical to prove it's true. Astrology doesn't have that. but you just ignore that and pretend you can argue form analogy anyway.

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Surely if you believed that, through a medium, that your dead loved one was "on the other side," watching over you, and forgives you for the times you hurt them, you would feel a sense of wonderful comfort in that idea. That doesn't mean it's true. It isn't, as mediums and psychics are almost certainly nothing more than mentalists that pretend it's something paranormal (look up cold reading). This is an example of an error of believing a falsehood, but you can also be a victim of not believing a truth because it is discomforting. If you had cancer but remained in denial, you might be in a better state of mind than if you accepted that truth. That doesn't make it false.

all of which is beside the point because that's your straw man bad analogy argument not what we are really discussing. mystical experience is not magic and it' snot astrology and its not psychics and is validated by empirical studies a whole bunch of them. you are ignoring the issues to make bad fallacious arguments.

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You should look at the section in Spilka 2003 about "Mysticism as an evolved consciousness." It exists because it is beneficial, not the other way around (so the hypothesis goes). Mysticism reduces stress, develops group unity, etc., so it is possible for it to be evolutionarily beneficial. If it's good for your genes, it doesn't matter if it causes an erroneous belief most of the time.

NONON you are misapplying what he said. Hood, Spilka's co author advised me in writing my book. I happen to know they agree with my argument. you have misinterpreted, (and I really have to wonder if not purposely) so you can introduce a bunch of emotive fallacies that atheists will go for which you yourself should know are fallacious.
Liberal and religious people often have trouble with thinking that evolution formed what's between the ears. I understand, but it's ridiculous to think it.


There's an experience. that experience is the reason religion exist. It's a reaction to the experience. The experience is a puzzle religion is an attempt to understand what it means. To the extent that it's explained well (according to the phenomena of the experience) then the experience validates the hypothesis because it conforms to the predictions. that means religion is a good explanation of the sense of the numinous so we should trust it. trust warrants belief, that = rational warrant.

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I've told you I'm a pragmatist, so you know I don't believe this. But, you are confusing pragmatism with wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is unpragmatic. It doesn't work at determining what is true and false.

that's ludicrous, how in the hell can 300 studies that show transformational power in one's life be "wishful thinking?" It's wishful thinking that has come true over and over again for millions of people around the world and it's predictable. We can predict it, you have the experience, your life is transformed that's nto wishful thinking!

you don't' know what you are talking about.

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It solidified my skepticism of your claims.

you didn't really read it, or if you did you have no understanding of what it says. I have been conducting an exchange of views with the author for over a year now. I know what he says I k now what says he meant.

you have not the sidelight idea what you are talking bout. your argument are nothing more straw men and fallacies.

it happens every time. you think here's one of them who can really think and is a nice, o good, no. just another hate group minion who is totally closed to reason.