Yes, but that has nothing whatever to do with the example I gave. It is not "occult". It is not a "cold reading". It is not a "trick" of any kind. It's a simple process that when followed honestly and earnestly, will result in a person's ability to change who they are from within, for the better. Something that is otherwise very difficult to do.
Cold reading is directly relevant to your example, because it stands as solid evidence that people tend to ignore counterevidence when it contradicts what they want to believe--just as you are ignoring the relevance
cold reading itself in this discussion. Just because an experience transforms your life, that does not mean that you have correctly understood the experience. Sometimes false analyses lead to good outcomes. That does not validate the false analyses.
But you've picked an extreme case, and now wish to use it to inform the norm. That's not a legitimate argument. Also, because it is such an extreme case, I would argue that this isn't even an example of religion in action, anymore, but of cult fanaticism. It would surprise no one that such fanatics could not let go of their bizarre beliefs or behaviors even in the face of such a letdown. They have developed a kind of addiction to them.
Miller's failed prediction was not as extreme as you would like to make it out to be. It had a major impact on the lives of thousands of people. It led to several major religious movements in the US (e.g. Seventh Day Adventists) and even the Bahai faith. You can stigmatize these movements as cults and fanaticism all you want, but they remain as evidence that large numbers of people are simply impervious to counterevidence when it comes to religious beliefs and superstitions. Michael Shermer, the noted skeptic, said it best when he pointed out that smart people believe weird things because they are very good at defending opinions that they arrived at for stupid reasons. In his analysis of holocaust deniers and UFO fanatics, he found that many such people were very informed about counterevidence for their claims and very skilled at coming up with excuses to pooh-pooh it.
No, I'm talking about a process that you or anyone can use to change themselves. It does not rely on any revelatory experience.
It does if it has anything to do with a god.
No, it is not a placebo effect. It works exactly the same way modern psychology works.
You misunderstand my point in bringing up the "placebo effect". It is not just that every good thing caused by misunderstanding is the result of a placebo effect. It is primarily to make my point that good outcomes--the "ends"--do not justify the means of achieving those outcome. You keep talking about life-altering experiences as if those alterations somehow validate subjective interpretations. In "cold reading" technique, the perpetrator gets the subject to believe something false by relying on our natural tendency to discount counterevidence against wishful thinking. When people buy lottery tickets, it is seldom the case that they have experienced winning lotteries. Indeed, what they are doing is little different from throwing the money down the toilet. Yet they hear stories about winners all the time, and that tends to erase the evidence that they are figuratively flushing dollars down the toilet.
Most of the things that most people believe to be true they have not tested scientifically. They believe them because they have shown themselves to be true experientially.
Sweeping generalization. Sometimes that is true. Sometimes it is false.
I gave this example:
Carol claims she loves Bill, and wants to marry Bill and live with Bill as his wife. But BIll is skeptical, so he proposes that they live together unmarried for a time, to see how it goes. But as they live together, Bill discovers that Carol does not behave as a woman who loves her husband, but as a woman who wants to possess him, and control him, and punish him when he does not oblige her needs. She says she loves him, and wants to be his wife, but she doesn't act as if she loves him, nor does she treat him like a husband.
Please explain to me why Bill's experience of this idea should not be taken as evidence for or against the truthfulness of the idea? And if it can be, then why can't we take the experience of a successful religious prescription (example above) as evidence of it's authenticity, as well?
Because you merely assumed that Bill correctly analyzed his relationship with Carol. You gave it from his perspective. Well, it is your hypothetical situation, so you are free to assume anything you want. But it is sometimes the case that the Bills of the world misjudge the Carols of the world. After I finished reading your little scenario, I came away with the thought that it might well have been Carol who dodged the bullet here, not Bill. Perhaps his unrealistic subjective expectations for Carol led him to ignore her reasonable behavior and just focus on the behavior that his suspicious nature told him must be there.
