How does one distinguish a 'belief' from a delusion?

[razzelflabben]

'You all'? it's just me here, speaking only for myself. And I haven't been arguing against testing our beliefs, I'm all in favour of it - although it's more difficult than most people think.

I really don't get what you think you are trying to argue with me, seriously I don't. I have been clear, I was the one that talked first about the need for tests that can be measured, quantified, verified, and that address every possible variable we can think of not to mention thorough testing. At this point, I don't know who all that was directed at, but you come here after I spent a great deal of time explaining all that to people who acted like they didn't understand that was part of the testing process to hear you try to insult my intelligence by acting like I don't already know all of this even though I was the one who brought it all up in the first place. Honestly, I am out of patience for that kind of non sense. If you missed all that discussion, it is up to you to review it before pretending that I don't know how to test for something when I demonstrated I clearly do.

Nope; you may be thinking of someone else - I've been questioning your particular claim and testing methodology.
Where did I say it did? I just gave an informative label to something you described.
Wait, are you saying that it's a fallacy that I don't agree with your interpretation?

ignored on purpose since you don't seem to want to address me but rather some warped image of me that you have made up in your mind. And yes I said seems as in not saying you are, but saying based on your posts this is the image I get and I won't play that game.

Nonsense; people have all kinds of beliefs about stuff they haven't and couldn't test for themselves. In science, use of 'belief' is implicitly qualified, there are no proofs or absolute truths (although, in practice, some ideas are so well supported that they are beyond reasonable doubt within their context of application). You can certainly be more confident that your belief is sound if you've tested it yourself, but you really have to know what you're doing, else there's a good chance that confidence will be misplaced.

please show the post where I said that the only tests that could be used to know if a belief is truth or delusion were one's we do for ourselves? I would really like to see where I said or suggested such a thing since it is totally contrary to what I believe and have said in the past.

To demonstrate to yourself that you are not deluded requires the right sort of tests and methodology.
No; the truth of a delusion or belief depends on the real-world facts of the matter, whatever you believe about the evidence. You can believe something to be true based on false evidence, and if what you believe is actually true, you are not deluded in that belief (although you may be deluded in believing that the evidence you base it on is true).
No, I'm suggesting that you are misinterpreting your evidence.

like I said, I was the first one to bring all this up on this thread...so challenge away...oh wait, you think you are challenging me by saying the same things I have already said as if I didn't say them already....sarcasm...tired of you attacking my character simply because you didn't read what has already been stated and really tired of being told I believe things I don't. Second warning, I have adopted a personal policy that after three warnings I take the misrepresentation and attacks of my character as intentional.

You claim to be testing your beliefs, but I suspect that what you are actually doing is confirming your beliefs - looking for evidence that supports your preconceptions. To borrow a leaf from your book, calling it 'testing' doesn't make it so. To properly test, you need to define the objective criteria that would falsify your belief (i.e. define precisely what it would take to show your belief is wrong), then devise an objective way to show that those criteria don't hold.

that is what others thought too which is why all this has already been discussed and why I had to teach them how the whole scientific method works in the first place.

With many beliefs, proper testing is simply not possible to do, because the criteria are subjective; I suggest the belief you think you tested falls into this category, and I suspect your tests weren't objective and weren't attempting to falsify the criteria that would show your belief to be wrong.

this thread will prove your "suspicions" to not only be false but after showing that they were false an attack of my character and beliefs. You know, slander after being shown that you are wrong.

But I'm prepared to be shown wrong - you may not have posted all the details, or I may have misunderstood your posts. So can tell me what objective criteria would falsify your belief, and how your tests were an objective way to show these criteria do not hold?

have done so dozens of times over, don't have the heart to do it again if your just going to try to tell me once again I believe something I don't and then try to prove that your misrepresentation is truth...sooner or later if I say I believe X you have to accept I believe X after I demonstrate a knowledge of Y which is the process to get to X, you sooner or later have to accept that I am not the mindless twit you are pretending I am.

 

[Chriliman]

If one is insistent on claiming non-belief, then they believe they are correct in their claim.

The question is, how do you know you're not delusional for claiming non-belief?

 

[amariselle]

No one has a complete understanding how human nature evolved. That lack of knowledge doesn't mean that we didn't evolve our nature.

I don't think human nature "evolved" at all. That's my point. The idea of human nature being a product and result of evolution doesn't explain what we know of human nature at all.

Why would you assume this?

Because what would be the point in evil being a consequence of evolution? Surely such a destructive force does not have to exist.

Why do you believe that we're the most "advanced" species? Other species are bigger, stronger, faster, etc. And what does it have to do with being kind?

I was referring to intellectual capability, since what was being referred to was not physical traits, but human nature/psychology.

 

[razzelflabben]

Once again, no. A test does not necessarily give evidence to a claim if the test can't give evidence for a claim.



I'm not talking about absolute belief, I'm talking about what constitutes good evidence. Testing the Bible to see if it's internally consistent only gets you to "The Bible is (or isn't) internally consistent." It doesn't say whether the Christian god exists or why it even matters if the Bible is internally consistent.



Like I've mentioned before, people who are delusional do their own tests and find that they aren't delusional. So each person doing their own tests can't be enough. You have to be able to externally verify claims to help make sure they aren't delusions.

taking a deep breath to keep from going off on some of you all....1. I told you all that long ago 2. I talked about not even that long ago about how what we want to test for governs what tests we do. 3. Like I said many times over, the tests have to be objective, quantifiable, etc. etc. etc.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

taking a deep breath to keep from going off on some of you all....1. I told you all that long ago 2. I talked about not even that long ago about how what we want to test for governs what tests we do. 3. Like I said many times over, the tests have to be objective, quantifiable, etc. etc. etc.

I think the thing we're all trying to get through to you is the fact that any test designed to verify a belief has to be first and foremost appropriate for the claim. The "pulling wings off a fly" test is objective, quantifiable, repeatable, etc., but it isn't appropriate. It's not a valid test for the claim.

Specifically for the tests you're making, how do you match the conclusions with your belief, so that you aren't simply testing for the internal consistency of the Bible, but are testing that they Bible comes from a god?

 

[devolved]

What tests have you done that falsify the existence of God....keeping in mind that Atheists believe there is no god and agnostics believe they don't know if there is a God or not. OR in the case of humanism, that we are our own god....what tests have led you to believe that your specific belief (we already know you keep changing your belief in relation to what you think gets you out of a pickle) so that your belief is based on what you think is truth and not delusion?

Actually, hat's not what most Atheism would claim... they don't claim that God doesn't exist... only a few do.

Atheism, as a base belief, is simply a lack of participation in belief due to lack of convincing evidence. Atheism and agnosticism is not exclusive categories. Both Atheists and Theists can be agnostic when it comes to claim of knowledge. Both can admit that they don't know. The difference is that one believes based on faith (trust in the claim), the other one would rather not jump in the dark and see if there is evidence for the claim.

 

[razzelflabben]

I think the thing we're all trying to get through to you is the fact that any test designed to verify a belief has to be first and foremost appropriate for the claim. The "pulling wings off a fly" test is objective, quantifiable, repeatable, etc., but it isn't appropriate. It's not a valid test for the claim.

Specifically for the tests you're making, how do you match the conclusions with your belief, so that you aren't simply testing for the internal consistency of the Bible, but are testing that they Bible comes from a god?

this is exactly what I have been telling you all and showing you from the first post I made to this one...so where is the communication if you haven't figured this out yet? I am one of the most skeptical people you will ever meet, I have a very rigid and high standard of what constitutes truth and you want to come here and try to convince me that since you believe different than I do that I am not who I claim to be? That because your belief is different than mine that I don't test rigorously or based on the thing being asked, even though I start out by saying all this....maybe, just maybe before you pass judgment you need to figure out if you are the delusional ones?

BTW, one of the first things I talked about was what claims talk about what belief, which is one of many reasons we can't get off topic because there are so many different beliefs...

 

[razzelflabben]

Actually, hat's not what most Atheism would claim... they don't claim that God doesn't exist... only a few do.

Atheism, as a base belief, is simply a lack of participation in belief due to lack of convincing evidence. Atheism and agnosticism is not exclusive categories. Both Atheists and Theists can be agnostic when it comes to claim of knowledge. Both can admit that they don't know. The difference is that one believes based on faith (trust in the claim), the other one would rather not jump in the dark and see if there is evidence for the claim.

WEll, definitions disagree with you, but again, off topic

 

[devolved]

taking a deep breath to keep from going off on some of you all....1. I told you all that long ago 2. I talked about not even that long ago about how what we want to test for governs what tests we do. 3. Like I said many times over, the tests have to be objective, quantifiable, etc. etc. etc.

But you haven't demonstrated as to how any of these "tests" would be conclusive.

First of all, you are testing and measuring behavior of people.

With that, you are portraying a very direct examples like "Someone had a tragedy, and they act very differently than we'd expect to see in this condition"....

But, as people point out continually in this thread is that you failed to show how God is responsible for the behavior, and nothing else. You simply seem to assume that based on the claim.

You keep telling that it's not what you do, but that's exactly what you seem to do in the examples you give.

 

[devolved]

WEll, definitions disagree with you, but again, off topic

No, it doesn't... and it's not off-topic, because you keep misrepresenting beliefs of others by claiming some definition that I can guarantee you that ALL of the atheists in this thread would reject.

So, are you going to keep telling people here what they believe and what they don't

Atheist is a much broader term than what you think it is.

 

[razzelflabben]

But you haven't demonstrated as to how any of these "tests" would be conclusive.

well, since I did, this is slander of my character...ignoring for flaming.

First of all, you are testing and measuring behavior of people.

With that, you are portraying a very direct examples like "Someone had a tragedy, and they act very differently than we'd expect to see in this condition"....

not really if you read my posts...but again, since you are talking about beliefs that differ from what I said, ignoring

But, as people point out continually in this thread is that you failed to show how God is responsible for the behavior, and nothing else. You simply seem to assume that based on the claim.

Again, did that long ago and multiple times and through illustrations and analogies and all kinds of things that anyone wanting to understand could follow. But I guess this means that you are more interested in flaming me than in listening. You see, dear one, if the only common denominator is God which we talked about, then the logical conclusion would be the existence of God and since we are talking about beliefs, this is not an absolute which we already talked about extensively. In science, if there is only one consistent root, the viable conclusion is that it is the cause. We see it all the time, it is how science works. So if the only consistent variable is God, it is logical (notice the word I used) to assume He is.

You keep telling that it's not what you do, but that's exactly what you seem to do in the examples you give.

lol...check again, until you can read it for what it says, your posts say you still don't get what I am saying and I am out of different ways to say the exact same things.

 

[razzelflabben]

No, it doesn't... and it's not off-topic, because you keep misrepresenting beliefs of others by claiming some definition that I can guarantee you that ALL of the atheists in this thread would reject.

So, are you going to keep telling people here what they believe and what they don't

Atheist is a much broader term than what you think it is.

wow, I misrepresent others beliefs when I include all kinds of beliefs and say, "pick the one you want to go with"...now we are delving into a bit of insanity, I'm done if this is your wisdom..

JUst for the record, notice my claim is that the claim that giving people the choice of belief is telling them what they believe is insane, nothing about the poster specifically being insane, that we can't know from this post, we can know the claim is insane

 

[devolved]

well, since I did, this is slander of my character...ignoring for flaming.

This is a philosophy forum, and I'm not really sure how you can claim some form of disagreement as "slander of your character". I didn't call you names. I merely pointing out that you are mistaken.

You have not demonstrated why you think only God could be responsible for these character traits.

not really if you read my posts...but again, since you are talking about beliefs that differ from what I said, ignoring

I've read your posts, and that's what it boils down to. Again, you have not demonstrated how only God could be responsible for this behavior, and you assume it simply because you can't explain it any other way. It's a subjective assumption that I disagree with on a basis that it's subjective.

In science, if there is only one consistent root, the viable conclusion is that it is the cause. We see it all the time, it is how science works. So if the only consistent variable is God, it is logical (notice the word I used) to assume He is.

But you haven't demonstrated that it's the only one "consistent root".

People keep pointing you to alternative interpretations of that behavior, and you are not responding as to why you think these interpretations are not valid.

That's how science works. It works via severe forms of scrutiny that actually rule out any other possibilities. You are not addressing other possibilities brought up here.

You actually have to convince people in science without accusing people who disagree with you of flaming.

lol...check again, until you can read it for what it says, your posts say you still don't get what I am saying and I am out of different ways to say the exact same things.

See the above. You are not addressing the alternative possibilities that people in this thread pointing you to. Science works by ruling out other possibilities.

Likewise, in science there's a tendency to first rule out smaller assumptions, prior to assume bigger and more complex ones. You run to the most complex of them all before evaluating anything else.

 

[Ronald]

Most religious folk seem content to reveal that the basis of their faith is an extremely personal, internal process. They agree that there is no tangible evidence that they can produce for their beliefs and that most of it resides in dreams, visions, feelings, etc, that they claim to have experienced.

Given that this is the case and observing that different religious groups will report wildly different beliefs, it becomes reasonable to conclude that they cannot all be accurate portrayals of reality.......some, or all, must be incorrect.

Hence my question.......how does an individual know that their belief is not a delusion concocted in their own mind?

You are wrong in your perspective that there is no tangible evidence of God's existence. It's all around you in creation. Order in the universe and the eco-system, design, beauty, intelligence, talent, DNA, love, emotions, the will of people are all tangible examples. You just deny that these things are of God or in need of God. Your god is chance. Chance is nothing, it has no power, no intelligence, no direction, no plan, no love or forgiveness, no mercy ... it is nothing. And you lift it up as the cause of everything. Then you say nature selected beneficial mutations over time and this is how we came to be. Nature is what? The sun, water, energy, minerals, chemicals ... These things do not have intelligence to "select" anything. Mutations are in fact defects. Even geneticists would agree that 9999 out of 10000 mutations are either harmful or deadly. That would mean the organism would have to experience 99.99% of the times harmful and deadly mutations before it got to a beneficial one. The only problem is, all the harmful ones would destroy it before it could experience a beneficial one. And then how would it know if it was good or bad with no intelligence.
Your whole Darwinian theory, filled with delusional guess work and missing information is a fraud and you bought into it. We don't have to prove our God to you.
Besides it is not an intellectual pursuit. Man's intelligence is not capable of knowing God without God first enabling him to. We are all born spiritually blind and it is this veil of blindness that has to be lifted by God. We cannot jumpstart this process. We cannot see God until we are ready to see Him. God puts experiences, events and people in your life for a purpose. The purpose is to eventually lead us to a point in our lives where we hear his calling. He stands and knocks on the door, if anyone opens it, He comes in and sups with them. So when this outward and inward calling happens, you need to respond by opening up the door or your heart in humility. Now, faith comes by the WORD. So therein lies your dilemma. I had it, every Christian had it. I was not a believer for 34 years and then a series of events took place whereby God drew me to Himself and wow, it was tangible! These things and people were tangible. His love and forgiveness is tangible. We would not believe otherwise, if we did not truly experience God in our lives.

 

[devolved]

wow, I misrepresent others beliefs when I include all kinds of beliefs and say, "pick the one you want to go with"...now we are delving into a bit of insanity, I'm done if this is your wisdom..

JUst for the record, notice my claim is that the claim that giving people the choice of belief is telling them what they believe is insane, nothing about the poster specifically being insane, that we can't know from this post, we can know the claim is insane

I've responded to your post #288 ... in which you responded that definition doesn't agree with me, without pointing to the definition you are referring to .

Atheism in a broader term is a lack of belief. It's not the same as belief in the opposite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

 

[devolved]

You are wrong in your perspective that there is no tangible evidence of God's existence. It's all around you in creation. Order in the universe and the eco-system, design, beauty, intelligence, talent, DNA, love, emotions, the will of people are all tangible examples. You just deny that these things are of God or in need of God. Your god is chance.

How and why would these point to God?

Essentially what you are doing is saying "because there's order, therefore God", but you are not showing as to why you rule out any other causes.

Evidence works in conjunction with explanation as to how that evidence fits into mechanics of reality.

For example, how does the fact that we see beauty in this world necessitate the explanation that God exist? That goes for any of the lines of evidence that you claim is indeed evidence for God.

Secondly, chance isn't an active force in natural universe. What we call "chance" is merely an observed consequence among many other possible outcomes. It's a retrospective evaluation, and it's not the "driving force of the universe". Matter has properties and it does work that follows these properties, and that's how our universe operates.

 

[razzelflabben]

This is a philosophy forum, and I'm not really sure how you can claim some form of disagreement as "slander of your character". I didn't call you names. I merely pointing out that you are mistaken.

you slander my character when you claim I believe something I don't, something I clearly said I don't and correct you on and still claim it even though it is contrary to my actual beliefs and offensive to my beliefs...but I am sure I was clear enough on that...moving on. And just to be painfully clear, it is not disagreement that is slanderous, it is reinventing what I said and believe into something contrary to what I believe and not accepting the correction when offered. disagreement is totally cool with me, slander of me or my ideas is not.

You have not demonstrated why you think only God could be responsible for these character traits.

really? So, all the times I told you that the only common denominator, you know, the only consistent variable is God isn't addressing why I say that a viable conclusion to the evidence is God....hum....I'm going to have to rethink this, if directly stating what I believe isn't stating what I believe and claiming that I believe something I don't isn't slander of my character and ideas after you have been corrected on the error, we must be in America where words no longer have meaning and disagreement is hate speech....sorry, I don't buy all that social non sense in our world today...have fun.

I've read your posts, and that's what it boils down to. Again, you have not demonstrated how only God could be responsible for this behavior, and you assume it simply because you can't explain it any other way. It's a subjective assumption that I disagree with on a basis that it's subjective.

Now, let's look at your claim as per my claim 1. I did not say anything at all about only God could be responsible, what I said is that God is the only common variable. 2. I did not say I could demonstrate that for you, in fact, I said that because of the nature of both the tests and the subjects I wouldn't be able to do that because of some confidential information but that that is also why one must do the tests for themselves. That's two false accusations of my claim so far, let's see if there are more...3. I said nothing about not being able to explain it any other way, in fact, I have been vocal against this type of argument which is one of the slanderous accusations you are making against me because I find that type of thing very offensive to knowing truth...we are up to 4 and that is just a short little paragraph....4. as to subjective, all belief has a subjective element to it, which was one of the points I made long long ago. That being said, there is also an objective element to it, which I also said long ago. In this particular situation the objective is the common denominator in all the examples, in other tests, the common denomination might be oh I don't know, love, scripture, ah...trying to think of other beliefs I have and have tested....maybe translation issues, (got one of those on my plate at the moment) history, archaeology, etc. Each one specifically designed for the question at hand. In this discussion, the one that was originally presented and corrected many times over was not whether or not God exists, but whether or not there are claims to the existence of God that are consistent with 1. the claims and 2. the evidence of those claims. IOW"s I spoke out openly about how we couldn't test for God specifically but we could depending on the evidence and conclusions be confident in His existence if the tests are all positive. Nothing about absolute anythings and the claim we are testing for God is your 5th false accusation of what I have said in one tiny little paragraph and some of those are offensive to me and my beliefs and you wonder why I am calling you out on it....geesh. two sentences 5 misrepresentations and all were corrected at least once.

But you haven't demonstrated that it's the only one "consistent root".

exactly...and why not? Because I already told you there are two reasons why I can't 1. because of confidential information and 2. because it is a belief it has to be tested by the individual not the collective. You know, as per the OP question, and per the exact thing we are talking about testing for, which just for review since you don't even seem to know that, is that the claims of God's existence in the individual lives as put forth in scripture testify to the existence of God as testified in scripture. IOW's if someone is in a relationship with God (talked about that tooo) then evidence would be X, Y, Z, A, B, C, etc. in measurable terms. But, that is the claim, not the test, it is backwards for the test. The test must assume the opposite, oh well, that was talked about long ago as well....as was how that would be falsified and what specific falsifications would mean from a viable conclusion standpoint....it's all a matter of record.

People keep pointing you to alternative interpretations of that behavior, and you are not responding as to why you think these interpretations are not valid.

really? More false accusations...1. there could be other explanations, I already talked about that and even agreed before it was brought up 2. Just because there is another explanation doesn't mean it fits every single test. 3. What we are talking about is that the only consistent variable in all the examples is God...notice I said nothing about the only explanation which would be one of your many slanderous accusations of what I said and one of the offensive ones since is it in direct opposition to what I not only said but believe. Rather what I said is that there is only one constant, you know, one variable, that is one explanation that is consistent with all the tests. That is how we know when we have a right to a viable conclusion.

But just as troubling is why you are still trying to come back to what I believe when the topic is how we know what we believe is truth or delusion. IOW"s your issue shouldn't be with any conclusion I personally draw, but rather with the process which I have repeatedly shown you you are misrepresenting even after correction and ....

That's how science works. It works via severe forms of scrutiny that actually rule out any other possibilities. You are not addressing other possibilities brought up here.

lol...that is just exactly what I repeatedly did and showed and corrected you on and am doing again with as much patience as I can muster right now.

You actually have to convince people in science without accusing people who disagree with you of flaming.

I have no issue with disagreement, but I have also told you all this several times over, in fact, I personally believe disagreement to be healthy, and I personally thrive on challenge, but you are not being accused of flaming because we disagree and the above is clear. You are being accused of flaming for continually misrepresenting what I have said, what I believe and in fact, trying to convince others here that I believe the opposite of what I actually do believe and have said and those ideas that you attribute to me that are in opposition to what I believe are distasteful to me because they are in opposition to my beliefs. That is what is inflammatory.

See the above. You are not addressing the alternative possibilities that people in this thread pointing you to. Science works by ruling out other possibilities.

that is exactly what I have repeatedly addressed, see above.

Likewise, in science there's a tendency to first rule out smaller assumptions, prior to assume bigger and more complex ones. You run to the most complex of them all before evaluating anything else.

see above, this is ridiculous that I would even continue to submit myself to your slander of my character and ideas.

 

[razzelflabben]

I've responded to your post #288 ... in which you responded that definition doesn't agree with me, without pointing to the definition you are referring to .

Atheism in a broader term is a lack of belief. It's not the same as belief in the opposite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

I didn't say anything about anyones belief in that post, which you accused me of...all I said was that the definitions didn't agree with your assertions but since it was off topic, I wouldn't push the matter...notice nothing in that at all attributes any given belief to any given poster nor to the general public at all, what it does do is say that the definitions do not line up with what you are saying, end of story....why is this even an issue for you, I didn't attribute any given belief to any given poster as you claimed I did...shouldn't be some trauma for this thread

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I don't think human nature "evolved" at all. That's my point. The idea of human nature being a product and result of evolution doesn't explain what we know of human nature at all.

What leads you to believe this? We evolved as social animals, and as such, have empathy along with our natural inclination to preserve ourselves. Seems to explain human nature well, albeit not in its entirety.

Because what would be the point in evil being a consequence of evolution? Surely such a destructive force does not have to exist.

But why do you think we should have evolved to the point where we don't do "evil" things to each other? I don't think anyone studying the field would say that.

I was referring to intellectual capability, since what was being referred to was not physical traits, but human nature/psychology.

Intellectual capability is a physical trait.

 

[amariselle]

What leads you to believe this? We evolved as social animals, and as such, have empathy along with our natural inclination to preserve ourselves. Seems to explain human nature well, albeit not in its entirety.

So where does murder fit into that explanation then? Is murder just part of "our natural inclination to preserve ourselves?"

And what WOULD explain human nature in its entirety?

But why do you think we should have evolved to the point where we don't do "evil" things to each other? I don't think anyone studying the field would say that.

Why wouldn't we? Evil shouldn't be something that even exists if evolution is true. It's not beneficial at all, it is only destructive.

Intellectual capability is a physical trait.

Sure, although the brain is, quite obviously, very complex.