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

razzelflabben said:

The only assumption I have given you is that after careful study, the God of the Bible makes claim X. Everything else is tested as thoroughly as I can possibly know how to test, I always encourage people to think up more tests. As long as they are "fair" tests, that is to say not biased to get a specific answer, I'm all good with testing, so far, no one can offer any additional tests that don't stack the deck. Stacking the deck is something I personally refuse to do. I figure it this way, if God or any other deity is real/true, we shouldn't need to stack the deck to come to a conclusion. That is why I refuse to stack the deck and will reject any test that insists on doing just that. All other test suggestions are invited and welcomed with great joy.

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Again, how do you test that the God of the bible is responsible for the outcome of the test? You didn't answer the question.

Example, I can make a claim that I'm responsible for all of the joy in your life via magical impact that I have on reality. Do you experience joy in your life? If yes, then it's a testimony to my special magical powers.

Did I sack the deck? Do you do the same thing?

SteveB28 said:

To be clear, I am using 'belief' in a broader sense ....

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Me too. All belief requires a degree of faith - a reliance on the accuracy of primary sources.

SteveB28 said:

I know this is repetitive, but...........how do you know that belief (along with the 'joy' and 'happiness') was couched in reality and wasn't a delusion? The ecstasy you describe is common to many religious experiences, you realise that don't you?

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Many entering college experience 'joy' as well, knowing that they will be 'enlightened' and not have to live in 'ignorance'. My sister pleaded with me to go to college. not to get a practical education but to avoid the life of 'ignorance' that awaited me if I didn't. I'm doing just fine. Her degree didn't help her manage her life while God's calling saved me. Only God knows and can grant the true "desires of your heart".

Regarding 'joy'. What are the scientific requirements to experience 'genuine' and not 'delusional' joy? To me my sister's joy was pure delusion. Her college experience brought her only frustration, failure, and debt. My 'delusions' have brought me happiness, health, and prosperity (with some bumps in the road along the way of course).

SteveB28 said:

How do you know that belief is not a delusion?

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Are you familiar with John Newton? Do you know what happened to him and what led him to write "Amazing Grace?"

devolved said:

Again, how do you test that the God of the bible is responsible for the outcome of the test? You didn't answer the question.

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scratching my head trying to figure out how I didn't answer the question....we eliminate all other possible causes, but then we add to that viable conclusion by requiring all other claims to be evidenced as well.

How is that not answering the question? I even laid out some of the ways we do that, specifically, as in two possibles exist, group 1 HS, group 2 other source....etc. As best I can tell that is how we would test for any claim as per the analogy of Joe and the light. You don't have any arguments that show that test was flawed or not sufficient to answer the question....so let me ask...using the analogy of Joe and the light, what other tests would we be able to conduct that were not already mentioned?

Example, I can make a claim that I'm responsible for all of the joy in your life via magical impact that I have on reality. Do you experience joy in your life? If yes, then it's a testimony to my special magical powers.

Did I sack the deck? Do you do the same thing?

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well, here are some of the problems with your analogy which btw makes me wonder why you didn't use the analogy I presented, but then again, that would have been responding to me which your posts are not good at doing.

Problem 1. with your analogy....it is not specific enough to be tested. Something that we are able to be testing needs to be specific enough to eliminate other possibilities. For example. Let's take joy for example since you try to bring it up here. A specific claim would be that you would have joy no matter the situation you find yourself in. Your analogy removes that specific nature to include all joy meaning there is nothing to test for.
Problem 2. with your analogy...you do not provide a testable source. For example, Magic is not a testable source. You might be, but magic is NOT. By contrast, the source you were given was the HS, the HS is said to be tangible from the standpoint of the spirit. IOW's testable.
Problem 3. with your analogy...Your analogy does not include any way to test, admittedly if you put nothing in the claim that is testable it is hard to find a way to test it, but that is the problem with your analogy, it leaves out all three of the important aspects to what I keep telling you in my posts.

So, I wouldn't say this is "stacking the deck" but I would say it is a gross misrepresentation of what you have repeatedly been told and shown about what I am telling you.

razzelflabben said:

Problem 1. with your analogy....it is not specific enough to be tested. Something that we are able to be testing needs to be specific enough to eliminate other possibilities. For example. Let's take joy for example since you try to bring it up here. A specific claim would be that you would have joy no matter the situation you find yourself in. Your analogy removes that specific nature to include all joy meaning there is nothing to test for.

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I'm sorry if you misunderstood. My magic is responsible for all of the joy you are experiencing. I said that if you experience any joy at all, it's a testament of my magic. If you find yourself in a situation where you can be joyous in any situation, that to by extension would be the the testament of the magic.

But, let's keep going.

razzelflabben said:

Problem 2. with your analogy...you do not provide a testable source. For example, Magic is not a testable source. You might be, but magic is NOT. By contrast, the source you were given was the HS, the HS is said to be tangible from the standpoint of the spirit. IOW's testable.

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No. I do provide a testable source - ME. I'm the source of my magic. So, the way to test me is to see if my magic works. If you experience any kind of joy, including the joy in any situation, it's a testament of who I am, a magical being who can do those things just by merely thinking about them.

razzelflabben said:

Problem 3. with your analogy...Your analogy does not include any way to test, admittedly if you put nothing in the claim that is testable it is hard to find a way to test it, but that is the problem with your analogy, it leaves out all three of the important aspects to what I keep telling you in my posts.

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You test it exactly the same way you claim you test HS.

You examine my claim. You see whether you have joy. If you have joy then the tests passes.

That's exactly what you claim to do in instance of God and HS. What would be different in this case?

razzelflabben said:

So, I wouldn't say this is "stacking the deck" but I would say it is a gross misrepresentation of what you have repeatedly been told and shown about what I am telling you.

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But you haven't shown it to be different so far.

razzelflabben said:

How is that not answering the question? I even laid out some of the ways we do that, specifically, as in two possibles exist, group 1 HS, group 2 other source....etc. As best I can tell that is how we would test for any claim as per the analogy of Joe and the light. You don't have any arguments that show that test was flawed or not sufficient to answer the question....so let me ask...using the analogy of Joe and the light, what other tests would we be able to conduct that were not already mentioned?

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I think I'll have to revisit your analogy. I've opted out to a shorter conversation format, because you tend to go over the place and then accuse me of not addressing the issue, which can be misconstrued as evasive tactic. Hence I prefer to keep the reply shorter and reply to one point at a time.

razzelflabben said:

Let's see if I can put it simply enough that you can at least pretend to understand....let's say that Joe walks in the room and says, every time I flip this switch the light comes on, thus the cause of the light coming on is me....okay, we look at Joe and say, hum, I wonder if he is right or wrong....so we begin to test. WE test his flipping the switch, we test other people flipping the switch, we test other things flipping the switch. After we do all that testing, we examine the light and all that is associated with it and test those components. In the end we conclude that where Joe can cause the light to go on, he is NOT the cause of the light going on and off.

The same process applies to the fruit of the Spirit and over almost 50 years of testing I have not yet found one single falsification. That leaves only one viable conclusion, a conclusion based on testing not on assumed belief or projection as you try to claim I have said when I clearly did not say that at all.

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First of all, the analogy is a bit off. In your analogy, Joe should be the lightbulb, hence where you are making a very convoluted claim, but I think I understand what you are trying to say.

Here're are a couple problems:

1) Whenever we name some physical characteristics, we are generally working backwards when we test things. We don't jump into a blank causal assumption based on claim and then assume that it's right primarily because certain things coincide.

For example, in this case we see that in some instances there seems to be a force that we call electricity. It's an arbitrary name that we give it. We derive some observations of its behavior, and we don't assume that there's intelligent cause behind it. We systematically measure the force and derive some rules it seems to follow.

Thus, our observation drives our assumptions. Our assumptions don't drive our observations. We set constrains on our assumptions to minimize that.

2) Concepts like joy, peace (contentment), patience... are concepts that are derived from human mentality. Mentality changed through education and training.

Thus, it's a lot more reasonable to assume that change in mentality and training is responsible for those things other than some third party imaginary being. If you are runing all the way to the greatest assumption possible, then we have a problem (perhaps you are not, and you explain as to how it's not the case).

From what I personally observe, we can train people to be happy in any circumstances. Just like you can train dogs to be more obedient and more patient. We can train people to be more caring and considerate, because all of it is derived through structure of the brain.


So, the obvious question would be... how do you know that the causes are unseen things like Holy Spirit, when we actually see that education and training is responsible for the same things?

Do religions incorporate education and training? Yes. They merely ascribe the effects to some imaginary forces, in the same way that I'd ascribe the effects of your joy to my magical power of joy.

devolved said:

I'm sorry if you misunderstood. My magic is responsible for all of the joy you are experiencing. I said that if you experience any joy at all, it's a testament of my magic. If you find yourself in a situation where you can be joyous in any situation, that to by extension would be the the testament of the magic.

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oh I understood your claim which is exactly why I showed you it was flawed and not consistent with what I am telling you....you really should allow your posts to reflect some understanding of what is being said. It would go a long way in discussion.

But, let's keep going.



No. I do provide a testable source - ME. I'm the source of my magic. So, the way to test me is to see if my magic works. If you experience any kind of joy, including the joy in any situation, it's a testament of who I am, a magical being who can do those things just by merely thinking about them.

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What did I tell you? Huh? Magic isn't testable...there needs to be a source that is testable. You are the source of the magic but magic being the source of the joy is not testable. We are only talking about what is testable....come on, even you can make your posts show enough understanding to make a plausible sounding argument against what I am saying without first trying to reinvent my arguments to suit what you want to try to argue. Maybe it is time to call this flaming...thinking about whether it is or not. As I pointed out, you removed 3 vital pieces of testable evidence from your analogy that exist in what I am telling you. You can come here and post all you want about how that isn't true, but we all know and you were shown that you are just trying to play a game because you have not rational response only an emotional one.

You test it exactly the same way you claim you test HS.

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not at all, because the claims of the HS offer three things that are testable that your analogy doesn't and you still haven't shared with us why you refuse to use the analogy I presented instead of twisting the situation into something it isn't.

You examine my claim. You see whether you have joy. If you have joy then the tests passes.

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no, there is more to testing than that and I have repeatedly shown you this.

That's exactly what you claim to do in instance of God and HS. What would be different in this case?

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the difference is that HS claim offers things we can test, your claim offers nothing that is testable. That is the difference and you have been shown that difference and yes I am sure I was clear. Even listed them with numbers so you couldn't miss one and make an issue of that.

But you haven't shown it to be different so far.

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I absolutely have. Many times over..
1. you claim to be the source of all joy. That is not testable in that there is not another alternate possible. Remember we were talking bout needing at least two groups of possibles....that is 1. HS or 2. not HS...your analogy does not provide two or more possibles for us to look at.
2. your claim of all joy does not give us something to test. You see, the Biblical claim is joy even when the world thinks there should be no joy. this is testable. If it is just joy in general and not something specific related to joy, there is nothing to test for. (man how many times do I have to say the same thing before you listen and respond to me)
3. Magic is not a testable. In fact, other than the source of joy, the mechanism isn't listed at all in the Biblical claim, only who is "turning the light switch on" Rather in the Biblical claim we have several testables, we can test if the joy that exists no matter the situation is present or not....we can test which group has this joy if it even does exist...then, we can continue testing to see if other claims exist and are found to be truth. Neither of those things are testable in your version of testing, which is why I suggested we start by teaching you what testing means.

I'll stop there because that is enough to try to get you to respond to in one post.

devolved said:

I think I'll have to revisit your analogy. I've opted out to a shorter conversation format, because you tend to go over the place and then accuse me of not addressing the issue, which can be misconstrued as evasive tactic. Hence I prefer to keep the reply shorter and reply to one point at a time.

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clarifying is not all over the place nor evasive....ignoring what is being said and refusing to address the post is....

razzelflabben said:

What did I tell you? Huh? Magic isn't testable...there needs to be a source that is testable. You are the source of the magic but magic being the source of the joy is not testable. We are only talking about what is testable....come on, even you can make your posts show enough understanding to make a plausible sounding argument against what I am saying without first trying to reinvent my arguments to suit what you want to try to argue. Maybe it is time to call this flaming...thinking about whether it is or not. As I pointed out, you removed 3 vital pieces of testable evidence from your analogy that exist in what I am telling you. You can come here and post all you want about how that isn't true, but we all know and you were shown that you are just trying to play a game because you have not rational response only an emotional one.

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It's an analogy to help you understand, because it's hard for me to relay to you scientific terminology in this instance. You make up your own methods, and when I provide you with analogy and show you that it's wrong you tell me that your method isn't the same without actually demonstrating how it's not the same.

How do you test HS or God? I keep asking you that. So, just answer this one question

devolved said:

First of all, the analogy is a bit off. In your analogy, Joe should be the lightbulb, hence where you are making a very convoluted claim, but I think I understand what you are trying to say.

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wow, so you think that the light bulb makes a claim that the light bulb is responsible for whether or not the light comes on...interesting, before we go on, please explain how that is logical...I'm thinking you are a bit delusional in your understanding of how claims work.

Here're are a couple problems:

1) Whenever we name some physical characteristics, we are generally working backwards when we test things. We don't jump into a blank causal assumption based on claim and then assume that it's right primarily because certain things coincide.

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so, you think you have the right to change my analogy then try to "teach" me how things work even though I have already testified to the truth of how they work. I'm beginning to see why you wanted to participate in a thread about delusions. The best I can tell you is 1. listen to what people are telling you, many people with delusions are corrected but they refuse to listen and 2. test everything, not with your watered down version of testing, but actually test your "images of truth"....[/quote]

For example, in this case we see that in some instances there seems to be a force that we call electricity. It's an arbitrary name that we give it. We derive some observations of its behavior, and we don't assume that there's intelligent cause behind it. We systematically measure the force and derive some rules it seems to follow.[/quote] yep, so far consistent with what I said....hoping you either see your delusions or get to something I didn't say soon.

Thus, our observation drives our assumptions. Our assumptions don't drive our observations. We set constrains on our assumptions to minimize that.

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the best way to do that is as I have repeatedly told you, don't make assumptions to start out with. You see, when you allow the variable of assumption into the equation you risk allowing your bias or assumption to draw un fair conclusions. That should be a red flag to anyone wanting to remove delusion from their life. Apparently you don't know that yet...apparently you still think it is okay to make assumptions, but doing so means that your faith is governing the conclusions rather than allowing the conclusions to govern your faith. Shame on you.

2) Concepts like joy, peace (contentment), patience... are concepts that are derived from human mentality. Mentality changed through education and training.

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are you sure? What evidence do you present that these things are mental? You see, you made a faith based claim here, not a scientific claim. In fact, I had this discussion a while back with someone and the science says that these things come from a variety of sources, including but not limited to external stimuli (I presented the evidence at the time, not going to put forth the effort here so you can ignore it) The result of this is that you are allowing your faith driven assumption that joy peace, etc. are concepts of the mind to tell you what to believe. This opens the door for delusions of what you believe.

What I am purposing is 1. leave assumptions out of it. 2. allow the tests to tell us what to believe and 3. only test those things that are measurable. FOr example, the joy we are talking about. Joy itself is not really measurable, but joy that is outside the norms of what we know is measurable. Let's take when our son died. There should have been no joy in our lives those early days, in fact, no one in this world who has lost a child would suggest there is any kind of joy in that situation, but you know what? We had joy. That is something that is able to be measured. It exists. The next question then, is where it came from. Again, measurable as long as we have options to attribute it to and tests we can use for those claiming responsibility. [/quote]

Thus, it's a lot more reasonable to assume that change in mentality and training is responsible for those things other than some third party imaginary being. If you are runing all the way to the greatest assumption possible, then we have a problem (perhaps you are not, and you explain as to how it's not the case).[/quote] again, your insisting we make assumptions when I am telling you we need to throw assumptions out the door and not let them back in. No wonder you can't understand what I am saying, you only understand faith based claims, which would answer the question of why you believe what you do, cause your beliefs are faith based and not evidence based.

As to the mentality and training, the analogy I gave you tests those conclusions out of the results before making a call based on the evidence. But you have to know that by now....geesh

From what I personally observe, we can train people to be happy in any circumstances. Just like you can train dogs to be more obedient and more patient. We can train people to be more caring and considerate, because all of it is derived through structure of the brain.

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so, now, in order for you to maintain your delusion about testing, you change the subject being tested from joy that defies the situation to happiness that is marked by care and consideration. See, that is the very hallmark of delusion. If you even have to change to topic in order to make your case, you just might be delusional.

So, the obvious question would be... how do you know that the causes are unseen things like Holy Spirit, when we actually see that education and training is responsible for the same things?

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1. changing the topic to happiness does NOT equal evidence that education and training changed anything and 2. testing the claims to remove education and training as the difference is part of the testing procedure just like I have told you many times over now.

Do religions incorporate education and training? Yes. They merely ascribe the effects to some imaginary forces, in the same way that I'd ascribe the effects of your joy to my magical power of joy.

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1. we aren't talking about religion here we are talking about a relationship with God. 2. we are not talking about magic here we are talking about the working of the HS in a man's life, nothing magical about it. In fact, it is neither illusion as magic is, nor is it without explanation as you are presenting magic here. Rather it is real and testable and explainable.

razzelflabben said:

1. we aren't talking about religion here we are talking about a relationship with God. 2. we are not talking about magic here we are talking about the working of the HS in a man's life, nothing magical about it. In fact, it is neither illusion as magic is, nor is it without explanation as you are presenting magic here. Rather it is real and testable and explainable.

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It sounds very much like magic.

devolved said:

It's an analogy to help you understand, because it's hard for me to relay to you scientific terminology in this instance. You make up your own methods, and when I provide you with analogy and show you that it's wrong you tell me that your method isn't the same without actually demonstrating how it's not the same.

How do you test HS or God? I keep asking you that. So, just answer this one question

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wow, how many times must I tell you before to listen and address me not the delusions you have in your head of who I am as revealed in your posts?

How do we test for God or the HS...we don't, we can't...but we can test the claims that God/HS makes as to evidence of who they/He is and what He is responsible for or not responsible for. Take Joe, remember him and the light. We don't need to test to see if Joe exists, what we need to test is his claim to see if the claim is or is not true. If every claim Joe makes is true, then it is a pretty good bet that Joe exists. You could still test to see I guess, but that gets into all kinds of crazy stuff about what existence is etc.

Archaeopteryx said:

It sounds very much like magic.

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really? What part sounds like magic? specifically

razzelflabben said:

really? What part sounds like magic? specifically

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The entirety of it.

razzelflabben said:

How do we test for God or the HS...we don't, we can't...but we can test the claims that God/HS makes as to evidence of who they/He is and what He is responsible for or not responsible for.

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What indicates that there is a God making any claims about himself through this or that holy book? It seems that there are human beings making such claims about a God. So are you really testing "the claims that God makes about himself"?

razzelflabben said:

How do we test for God or the HS...we don't, we can't...but we can test the claims that God/HS makes as to evidence of who they/He is and what He is responsible for or not responsible for. Take Joe, remember him and the light. We don't need to test to see if Joe exists, what we need to test is his claim to see if the claim is or is not true. If every claim Joe makes is true, then it is a pretty good bet that Joe exists. You could still test to see I guess, but that gets into all kinds of crazy stuff about what existence is etc.

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Are you comparing Joe to God? You haven't made it clear in your analogy. I think I could respond better if you make things more clear.

We don't need to test that Joe exists because you actually insert the Joe into experiment and name him. I guess you could name an automatic ligh-switch Joe. How would you know a difference then? You can't just presume the causes because you ascribe some effects to these causes. The whole analogy is very confusing for this reason.

Secondly, we know that people exist, therefore the claim that there's a person named Joe who is flipping the switch isn't in the same realm of plausibility of what you are talking about.

That's the core fallacy of this issue. You inject a presupposition, and you don't see a need to validate it, and then you falsely correlate your presupposed causes with your observed effects.

razzelflabben said:

are you sure? What evidence do you present that these things are mental? You see, you made a faith based claim here, not a scientific claim. In fact, I had this discussion a while back with someone and the science says that these things come from a variety of sources, including but not limited to external stimuli (I presented the evidence at the time, not going to put forth the effort here so you can ignore it) The result of this is that you are allowing your faith driven assumption that joy peace, etc. are concepts of the mind to tell you what to believe. This opens the door for delusions of what you believe.

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That these things are mental is a scientific fact . We actually know that it's a fact, because we can emulate these mental states by injecting various drugs and hormones. In fact it's already widely done.

ADHD is a lack of "patience" of focus. OCD can be a lack of patience or focus. All of these things can be treated via training, education, and in some extreme cases by adjusting the brain chemistry. Some people sink into depression, and guidance can help them to re-focus on positive things and feel more joy.

The entire field of psychology exists because we can treat certain psychological states by providing guidance and training.

Likewise, there are plentiful experiments done that clearly demonstrate that people can be induced to feel more happy or sad or patient or anxious by simply stimulating certain areas of the brain.

How much scientific evidence do you need?

Secondly, these are mental states because that's what we define them as to begin with. These are brain-driven activities. You'd have to demonstrate that these are not, because everything we know about these concepts points to two things:

1) Endocrine system
2) Human nervous system

razzelflabben said:

right, but I was told that the scientific method is not reliable for determining what is truth and what is delusion. Personally, I think it is, but I was told on this thread it isn't, so I am curious what method is if it isn't the scientific method.

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There are no guarantees of reliability with the scientific method, but it's the best we have. Without a link or quote of the post you're referring to, I can't really comment further.