What is the Psychology/Mechanics of Religious Belief?

[TagliatelliMonster]

I liked your post, however, I didn't realize that other animals were prone to superstitious thinking. Also, I looked up information about the pigeon and got a lot of results for it, however, I didn't want to take the time to read those studies. However, do you know of any other studies with other animals? And if so, could you elaborate on that a little?

I'ld have to look it up myself. Saw some documentaries left and right and probably read about it back in the day, but....

The basics of the experiment concerns pattern seeking.
Suppose you put an animal in a room with a small hatch that spews out a treat. Place a button in the room that opens the hatch and then a treat comes out. Animals don't instinctively push buttons off course. So at some point, it will push it by accident. It will quickly figure out the mechanics and after a while, it will consciously push it to get the treat.

The interesting part is when you remove the button and put the opening of the hatch at random intervals.
So really, there is nothing the animal can do to open the hatch. It is random, so it also won't recognize any particular timer intervals. There would be no pattern.

In the experiment with the pigeons, after some time, plenty of them (each in their own box with their own personal hatch) were doing all kinds of weird things. One was constantly spinning around. Another was bumping his head. Another was waving its right wing. Etc.

These strange behaviors were the result of coincidences of them doing such at the same time the hatch randomly opened. And they figured that movement caused the opening of the hatch. So they tried again. And again. And again. And off course, while doing so the probability of the hatch opening around the time of a trial goes up. And then the psychological weakness sets in of "counting the hits and ignoring the misses".

Typical type 2 cognition error: the false positive. Thinking event A caused event B while in reality there is no connection at all.

 

[PureX]

I'm happy for you to give me, or refer me to, any satisfactory demonstration that "metaphysical phenomena" of this supernatural kind occur outside of the individual's brain ie have objective existence, are real.

I don't know of any.

The fact that you (and others) continue to ask, is indicative of your inability/unwillingness to grasp the explanation. Materialism is a failed ideology. And a trap to those who can't let go of it.

 

[blü 2]

The fact that you (and others) continue to ask, is indicative of your inability/unwillingness to grasp the explanation. Materialism is a failed ideology. And a trap to those who can't let go of it.

EITHER God is real, has objective existence, is out there in nature.

OR God exists only as an idea, a set of concepts, a thing imagined, in an individual brain.

If you say there's a third option, I'm interested to hear it. But in the past, the purported third options have all been indistinguishable from the second one above.

 

[PureX]

EITHER God is real, has objective existence, is out there in nature.

OR God exists only as an idea, a set of concepts, a thing imagined, in an individual brain.

If you say there's a third option, I'm interested to hear it. But in the past, the purported third options have all been indistinguishable from the second one above.

No, you're not interested to hear it at all. You're interested to dispel it by any means you can think of.

If you reread your own post, the error is glaring at you. That is the irrational assumption that "real" equals "objective existence". If that were so, the idea that reality equals objective existence is "not real" because ideas have no objective existence. If the idea of God is not real because God has no objective existence, then what of all the many other ideas we humans hold that have no objective existence? What of love, beauty, justice, honor, truth, infinity, humor, ... and so on? None of these phenomena exist objectively. They all exist as conceptually experienced phenomena. But according to you, only objectively experienced phenomena "really" exist. So all the phenomena I just listed must be just make-believe to you, like God is.

And yet these make-believe phenomena are of the greatest importance to us all in our experience of existence ... more so even than your coveted "objective reality". And they are important even to YOU! Which clearly defies your own position of dismissing them as being 'unreal'.

The cognitive conceptualization of objective physical reality generates the phenomenon of metaphysical reality. And they are both equally "real" as they are both within the parameters of "the truth of what is". And they are both of great significance to we humans. And yet philosophical materialism only recognizes one of them as being "real", and thereby as being "true". It's just wrong, and absurdly so, as it negates it's own premise as being unreal.

 

[blü 2]

If you reread your own post, the error is glaring at you. That is the irrational assumption that "real" equals "objective existence".

How do you define "real"?

If that were so, the idea that reality equals objective existence is "not real" because ideas have no objective existence.

Ideas have objective existence as brain states. It's the contents of those brain states that may not have objective existence. A rough analogy is a drawing on a sheet of paper. It may be of your car (the idea of a real thing) or it may be of Mickey Mouse (the idea of an imagined thing) or it may be the figure 7 (the idea of an imagined thing).

If the idea of God is not real because God has no objective existence, then what of all the many other ideas we humans hold that have no objective existence? What of love, beauty, justice, honor, truth, infinity, humor, ... and so on?

"Love" is the concept of human bonding of various kinds. The explanation for the bonding is found in our endocrine system, the hormones &c that operate on the brain eg testosterone, adrenaline, oxytocin and give rise to our emotions.

None of these phenomena exist objectively.

Take "love". The concept refers to patterns of human conduct that humans readily recognize. The human conduct is the real part, the term is the conceptual label.

Take "infinity". There are no known infinities in the real world. The unbounded number line (the original concept) and the various Cantorian kinds of infinity (more concepts) have no real counterpart. It may be that infinities are possible in certain models of reality in physics, but if so, the map is not the territory.

Or take "7", as I said above. That's purely a concept ─ there are no mathematical 7s, no uninstantiated 7s, running around in the wild. Indeed, before you can have an instantiated 7, you have to choose WHAT you want to count, and you have to choose the FIELD in which you want your chosen subjects to be in ─ 7 hens in the red barn, 7 oaks between my house and the corner, &c. The numbers don't exist without you.

Take "beauty". Beauty is a concept, an abstraction and also a judgment, and again beauty doesn't exist in the absence of a human judge. This face, this painting, this sunset, this garden, may be beautiful to you but not to someone else.

Take "justice". Justice is again a concept, an abstraction and a judgment. What I think is just may not be what you think is just. It involves other concepts, abstractions, judgments, like '"fairness" and "reciprocity" and "obligation", each of which you may attribute to particular states of affairs, which may or may not be the same as my attributions.

And so on. Our language is full of concepts like "language" or "full" or "concept" but it also includes references to real things: "Putin", "Eiffel Tower", "my father's 1959 two-tone blue Customline". (Whereas "Russian leaders", "towers", "1959 two-tone blue Customlines" are all abstractions, the difference between "this chair" (real) or "a chair" (abstraction).

 

[Link]

Intentions are mixed. In Quran, good thing or not, the children of Israel intention to believe in God came out fear of the Pharaoh and oppression they faced from him.

It's a mixed blessing Shiites are oppressed, we can see the evil of our oppressors, and it's Satanic. "And they did not exact vengeance on them except that they believed in their Lord, the Great"

I have chosen like Musa (a) to never side with the oppressors, and never be a supporter for them, and not silently watch by either. Musa (a) said "By the favor you bestowed upon me, I will never be a supporter/aider to the oppressors".

There is a Satanic alliance that to me proves beyond doubt that Satan exists as it's vehement in their evil and seeks to oppress the truth with Ahlulbayt (a).

 

[Link]

In my view, people who don't believe in hell-fire, care little for justice and don't mind oppressors and their oppression.

They have taken side in the unseen with the devils and think they are champions of love and compassion, when, all their actions prove otherwise.

 

[Link]

So oppression we face, can be a double blade of blessings and curse. While manifesting hell-fire and that our opponents truly deserve it, we see the hate people have for God and his chosen ones, is supernatural and from the unseen evil creatures, and it makes us not incline to the temporary world that passes away.

When we don't care for the world to pass away, we naturally incline to God's face and hope in God's pleasure and reward that remains. This causes us to crave God and also we constantly hope in the return of the King chosen by God, that it maybe bring justice and peace and relief.

We work for that, and hope in that work, God appreciates our efforts.

Of course, there are saints, who the influence of oppression is a non-factor, and are just in love with God. But oppression and why God allows it, has a wisdom. The trial although God dislikes it, and believers dislike it, has a immense blessing if we are patient and love God in all that.

 

[Muffled]

I believe a major player is the carrot and the stick. Punishment and reward. Do the wrong thing and get punished. Do the right thing an be rewarded.

 

[Muffled]

As a non believer I do worship a God that I'm reasonably sure does not exist.

I am quite certain that many religious believers claim to know God by way of revelation through experiencing the Spirit.

In my eyes there is no rational way of knowing God. Yet to hear anything convincing.

I make the claim in my post on General Religious debates titled: I am the best evidence of God.

 

[Muffled]

My uneducated guess is that magical thinking plays a big role. It's all about the hope that the laws of physics somehow have exceptions that allows them to be special or "saved" from a perceived "evil", they can't fight themselves, by some celestial benefactor.
It is a pretty universal hope that also manifests in conspiracy theories or alien abductions.
We see it also in art, especially the superheroes stories. (Only that people who read comix or watch Hollywood blockbusters mostly go back to reality after indulging in a few hours of "what if ...".)

Also, welcome to the forum.

I believe there is no need for a dispensation of Physics. God put this world together physically and certainly knows how to deconstruct and reconstruct. I believe what you mean is that God does not need evolution to perform His miracles. For instance a cancer will take its course unless there is an intervention.

 

[The Hammer]

So which religion do you follow, that accepts all the known or best explanations for observations rather than magical ones?

I don't think it really matters.

Considering your intent here is to talk down to, and not learn from.

 

[PureX]

How do you define "real"?

The same way I define truth: ... "What is".

Ideas have objective existence as brain states.

This is quite wrong, sorry. The image in a mirror is not in the mirror. It's not even in the room that the mirror is in. Nor is it in the eye of the beholder. So where is it? It's nowhere. It doesn't objectively exist. It's a metaphysical phenomenon. It's a conceptual experience.

The materialist says that if it doesn't exists apart from a human's cognitive experience of it, it's doesn't really exist at all. While everyone else says that if it exists apart from the human experience of it, it's existence is moot. It has no content, no value, no context, no meaning, and we couldn't even be discussing it. "Objectivity" is a great big nothing by any standard any human has ever or could ever devise. And yet here are these materialist; constantly touting it as if it were the sole determiner of reality and truth. That's just nuts!

It's the contents of those brain states that may not have objective existence.

The contents of the brain is material. The "state" of the content's relative arrangement is circumstantial. But the resulting idea these produce is metaphysical. It is not the brain, it is not the arrangement, it is something else. Something perceptual/conceptual. (Perception IS conception, by the way. Neither can happen without the other.)

A rough analogy is a drawing on a sheet of paper. It may be of your car (the idea of a real thing) or it may be of Mickey Mouse (the idea of an imagined thing) or it may be the figure 7 (the idea of an imagined thing).

Regardless, it will be the physical expression (the drawing) of a metaphysical experience: of "a car", "a cartoon character", or "a digit".

"Love" is the concept of ...

Exactly. "Love" is a conceptual experience. It s not a biological experience. It is not a social-circumstantial experience. It is not a chemical experience. And it is not a "brain fart" kind of experience. It's a very complex, cognitive conceptual experience. It's a metaphysical experience.

Take "infinity". There are no known infinities in the real world. The unbounded number line (the original concept) and the various Cantorian kinds of infinity (more concepts) have no real counterpart. It may be that infinities are possible in certain models of reality in physics, but if so, the map is not the territory.

So far, the quest for the basic "stuff" of existence appears to be infinite. As do the "parameters" of the existential universe.

Or take "7", as I said above. That's purely a concept ─ there are no mathematical 7s, no uninstantiated 7s, running around in the wild. Indeed, before you can have an instantiated 7, you have to choose WHAT you want to count, and you have to choose the FIELD in which you want your chosen subjects to be in ─ 7 hens in the red barn, 7 oaks between my house and the corner, &c. The numbers don't exist without you.

Because they exist within us. But then WE exist. So those number DO exist in the world, through us. "Objectivism" keeps trying to separate us from reality, and reality from us. But we ARE our reality. And reality without our cognition is moot.

Take "beauty". Beauty is a concept, ...
Take "justice". Justice is again a concept ...

These are not just ideological concepts, they are cognitive experiences (just like burning your hand on a hot stove is a cognitive experience). They are real phenomena. Actually experienced, by real, actual human beings. Yet they do not exist in your materialist's "objective" reality. Because they are meta-physical, not physical, phenomena. This is the failure of philosophical materialism.

 

[KWED]

I don't think it really matters.

Considering your intent here is to talk down to, and not learn from.

Convenient.
You made a claim. Now you refuse to support it. The reasonable conclusion is that the claim was flawed and you knew it when you made it.

 

[The Hammer]

Convenient.
You made a claim. Now you refuse to support it. The reasonable conclusion is that the claim was flawed and you knew it when you made it.

Nope, I've just never had the desire to support my religion or religious beliefs.

My goal isn't to make others believe my path works for me.

Edit: If your intent is to know and understand my Religion and view, you can peak at my religion in the Information tab about me. You want to debate, tell me my views are wrong/unreal etc. I'm not going to respond.

 

[ppp]

Nope, I've just never had the desire to support my religion or religious beliefs.

Then why come to a forum specifically designated to debate those beliefs?

 

[The Hammer]

Then why come to a forum specifically designated to debate those beliefs?

Because this forum is also meant to Discuss beliefs (seperate frome debate), connect believers, and foster community.

The RF is not specifically a debate forum.

 

[The Hammer]

Then why come to a forum specifically designated to debate those beliefs?

I will talk about my views with others willing to engage in discussion and have a desire to learn and be impartial. But I have no desire to "defend" them.

It's pointless.

 

[ppp]

Because this forum is also meant to Discuss beliefs (seperate frome debate), connect believers, and foster community.

The RF is not specifically a debate forum.

You have made the decision to come to a section of RF that is specifically and explicitly designated a debate forum. So again, why?

 

[The Hammer]

You have made the decision to come to a section of RF that is specifically and explicitly designated a debate forum. So again, why?

To debate.

The fun thing about having free will is getting to choose how and when I engage. No?

I don't have to debate off of someone else's desires or wishes.

Edit: Also this thread is about the psychology/mechanics behind belief.

Not defending my Religious inclinations..