Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
"Delusional" means a good deal more than "mistaken," and you know it. So, how is maligning someone's intelligence more offensive than maligning their sanity?
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Dawkins!
- Thread starter gnomon
- Start date
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
I don't think that being delusional is quite the same as being crazy, although many crazy people are delusional. I think a delusion is a fixed false belief without evidentiary support, that is not subject to rational argument. When someone says to me, "I believe this on faith, regardless of the evidence, and there is no evidence that would cause me to give up my faith," that says delusion to me. A good example would be a Young Earth Creationist. A sign of a delusion is that no amount of evidence or logic can dislodge it. I don't think intelligence is a very reliable protection against delusion, if a person is willing to set their intelligence aside, so to speak, and go on "faith," meaning here belief aside from or even despite the evidence.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
We already have a term for what you describe: blind faith. You can decry that all you like without 1) lumping all believers together and (2) insulting our sanity. Yet you continue to defend the untenable position of phrasing your argument in the most offensive terms possible, and further insisting that it's conducive to civil discourse. IT'S NOT.
You cannot control who is getting prayed for and who is not.
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
Dawkins makes a big point of calling "belief" delusional, not "believers". The theist nitpickers will find any excuse to put down Dawkins.
If you hold to a delusion, you are, by default, delusional.
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
Every person on the earth believes some delusions, like they are handsome, when they are not, etc., one can point out delusions in general w/o calling specific people delusional.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Yes, you can. Have you read the studies?
Or do you mean that some of the non-prayed for group actually got prayed for as well?
No, you can't. If you call a belief in general delusion, you by default call those who hold it delusional.
This...
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
OK, if you want to take it personally, be my guest.
There is no other way to take it...
Autodidact, and perhaps Dawkins as well, is defining a delusion as "a fixed false belief without evidentiary support, that is not subject to rational argument." See post # 222. By this definition, it seems to me, religion can properly be called delusional.
I'm sorry if the term is so value-laden. It's unfortunate that people tend to give more weight to connative meaning than denotative. It's unfortunate that people use their right brain at all when debating serious issues. How can any argument be dispassionately evaluated if we personalize it; if the feelings it engenders figure into our evaluation of it?
Please don't "think" with your right-brain, people, and don't change the premises (definitions) of the proposed equation. You're making this a semantic debate.
I'm sorry if the term is so value-laden. It's unfortunate that people tend to give more weight to connative meaning than denotative. It's unfortunate that people use their right brain at all when debating serious issues. How can any argument be dispassionately evaluated if we personalize it; if the feelings it engenders figure into our evaluation of it?
Please don't "think" with your right-brain, people, and don't change the premises (definitions) of the proposed equation. You're making this a semantic debate.
Inflamatory only if you take it's connotave meaning, Storm; only if you personalize it -- neither of which is ever done by serious intellectuals in debate.
Definitions are generally fixed in the introduction to an argument. Afterward only the specific, fixed, denotative definitions may be considered. Otherwise the interlocutors end up speaking different languages, talking at cross purposes and wondering why their colleagues are so obtuse.
Philosophical argument is mathematical -- Boolian. Feelings and flexible definitions of terms have no place in it.
Autodidact has made his definition of "delusion" clear in post 222. You may properly criticize his conclusions only in terms of this, axiomatic definition.
If you wish to explore this concept starting with different axiomatic equations you need to introduce a second argument. That would be perfectly fine, but if we keep drawing conclusions using different definitions and premises, in the same argument, we'll never get anywhere.
Definitions are generally fixed in the introduction to an argument. Afterward only the specific, fixed, denotative definitions may be considered. Otherwise the interlocutors end up speaking different languages, talking at cross purposes and wondering why their colleagues are so obtuse.
Philosophical argument is mathematical -- Boolian. Feelings and flexible definitions of terms have no place in it.
Autodidact has made his definition of "delusion" clear in post 222. You may properly criticize his conclusions only in terms of this, axiomatic definition.
If you wish to explore this concept starting with different axiomatic equations you need to introduce a second argument. That would be perfectly fine, but if we keep drawing conclusions using different definitions and premises, in the same argument, we'll never get anywhere.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Look, I'll debate theology till the cows come home, but don't pee on my boots and tell me it's raining.
Again, in serious discussion we must accept Dawkin's specific definition of his term as axiomatic. Any alternative definitions can only obfuscate the argument, as would any personalization.
An example comes to mind. I work in the medical field. When I, or any medical professional hears the term "insult," we take it to mean an externally generated physical injury. It doesn't occurr to us to interpret it as indicating a verbal affront or slight. It is a specific,technical term.
The same obtains in any serious, intellectual discussion. Any term must be accepted with the definition initially proposed in the argument. No interpretation, personalization or emotional reaction can be permitted if the idea is to be dispassionately explored. this is mathematics. Boolian algebra. The right-brain doesn't have any place in the affair.
An example comes to mind. I work in the medical field. When I, or any medical professional hears the term "insult," we take it to mean an externally generated physical injury. It doesn't occurr to us to interpret it as indicating a verbal affront or slight. It is a specific,technical term.
The same obtains in any serious, intellectual discussion. Any term must be accepted with the definition initially proposed in the argument. No interpretation, personalization or emotional reaction can be permitted if the idea is to be dispassionately explored. this is mathematics. Boolian algebra. The right-brain doesn't have any place in the affair.