A question for atheists about religious loved ones...

Great Debates
21

It really depends.

Even highly religious people (Priests, Bishops, other religious figures) often dismiss claims that people are “seeing ghosts” et cetra. In general even the most religious of the religious figures will counsel someone that more than likely they are “dreaming.”

Part of the reason is, many Christian sects teach that the end of the prophets came around the time of Jesus, that god has already sent his message so he isn’t going to directly commune with us in that way again until the end of time.

Remember that many of the Founding Fathers of the United States (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin) were deists or borderline atheists, certainly not Christians. Yet they understood and respected the religious viewpoints of others.

Whehter you consider religion to be complete bunk or not, you should show a similar respect, it is a respect with a long tradition and it is founded on the principles that people should be allowed to think as they wish in that regard.

22

Also, just because you like science, facts et cetra doesn’t mean you have to be atheist nor does it mean that you cannot accept science or facts if you are theist.

We have all seen many of the polls that report a large percentage of people employed as research scientists are in fact religious.

You aren’t contradicting the rules of science by accepted there are things that cannot be explained using our current level of scientific understanding. Galileo felt that god gave man logic and reason to explore the scientific world, but he didn’t claim that just because something is not proven by science, it is patently false.

23

It’s a shitty situation. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would believe that there’s a benevolent entity that gives a flying fuck what we do here on Earth, but hey…people are funny that way. Good thing my dad, son, and husband think along the same lines as I do. Not too much stress.

24

I’ve got behind. Pesky business, having a job. Lets see…

As much as I’d like to, I can’t seem to convince myself that she’s imagining things. She might be mistaken, but that would still mean that something is out there communicating with her in a manner that she manages to interpret into fairly clear-sounding visions and voices. Or that she’s hearing voices in the bad way.

At least some of her experiences (voices for certain, and at least a few of the visions) happened while wide awake and presumably coherent. She wasn’t even in a religious mood for some of them. And there’ve been plenty of these experiences, enough so to make a person doubt her ability to interpret the world if she’s ‘embellishing’ them out of momentary confusion and trifles. I’m sure I haven’t heard about them all. Being a sober, reserved person, she doesn’t go around talking about them unprovoked; she consinders them rather private. She generally pulls out these first-person experiences only when she’s already in a religious discussion and wants to elucidate on a point. And no, I don’t think she’d make them up just to prove a point. I flatter myself to think I know her that well.

As to her or me being mistaken, well, if she’s ‘mistaken’, then she’s either hallucinating, or fantastically suggestive (though not on any other subject), or being (deliberately?) deceived by some force or forces that are conspiring to fool her into thinking her religious persepective is correct and validated. Yikes!

If I am wrong, well, I’m-a gonna go to hell. Well, technically, the Mormon equivalent, which while not all fire and brimstone is still not the best way to be. As one who just wants to get along in relative confort, the idea of getting smacked down (eternally so) for being a passive nonbeliever is a bit worrying.

The LDS believe in modern-day prophets, and personal revelation, so she’s quite self-consistent in that regard. Some of her experiences are seemingly quite mormon-centric; if she’s not at least a little wrong, I’m not the only person in trouble here.

I’m aware that extraphysical entities do not inherently conflict with science at any level. That’s not the problem. The problem, I suppose, is that I don’t like my prospects if her specific religious outlook is correct. Hence the initial comment about afterlife temperature.

I suppose I’m rather more agnostic than atheistic (after all, I’m worrying).

This being the context, I seem to have the options of believing she’s right, and I’m screwed; or that she’s ‘bug fucking nuts’, and I’ve got a loon for a mother; or, as has been mentioned, I just quit bothering about it, presumably waiting and finding out the hard way. Supposing I’m not willing or able to just ‘have faith’ and jump on her particular theological bandwagon, are these the only options?

I understand that this isn’t a particularly ‘great debate’, so sorry about hanging my personal problems out here, I suppose. I just figured that, being religious and all, it would end up here anyway.

25

Actually, my parents were like that and they got along just fine.

My father told me on the list of things they fought about, the first four were about money. Then there was the in-laws, then the kids, then a couple more categories of money…

Religion, he said, came in about 65th.

26

Lots of people believe they were abducted by aliens, and have vivid memories of the experience. It doesn’t mean aliens are actually abducting people. I think you are taking these “experiences” much too seriously. The fact is that all kinds of people believe that all kinds of wacky stuff has happened to them, and quite often they are simply mistaken. You’re certainly free to believe anything you want, but personally, knowing how many people there are out there who are mistaken about having certain experiences, I wouldn’t overturn my entire belief system based on experiences related by one person, even if it were a relative of mine. Relatives aren’t immune from hallucinations.

This is what I would ask myself if I were you. Why would God only communicate with a select few, like your mom, and not try to talk to the rest of us? Now, a religious person would say, “Well you’re just not listening”. But if these experiences are as vivid as your mom says they are, then one would have no choice but to listen. I find it highly dubious that God would only impart these experiences on those who already believe, and not even try to communicate with the rest of us.

But I just don’t think having experiences like that qualifies one as a “loon”. If it does, there are a hell of a lot of loons out there.

27

Well, in the LDS church there seem to be a lot of people having similar religious experiences, of varying intensities. But, as they’re not me sweet ole mummy, it’s a lot easier to blow them off as embellishment, secondhand crap, or why not, maybe they’re all hallucinating, that would be their problem.

Why only a few? Well, there’s a ritual called ‘confirmation’ in the LDS church that grants you the ‘gift of the holy ghost’; they’d probably cite the fact that the unwashed masses haven’t got that, so they’re rather more poorly tuned in. Come on, any half-coherent religion will have that sort of thing properly explained off. And the fact that they do doesn’t prove squat; it merely defuses protests to the contrary such as the one you just made.

28

Not my job. You’re asserting a dichotomy that is in need of defense because it is not at all obvious why someone can’t have supernatural belief without being flat-out loony.

The wrong reasons.

I think you need an IMHO thread, because this isn’t really a debate. How do you reconcile your mom’s sanity w/ her religious belief? That’s the essential question, right?

People have weird experiences that they can’t explain. It is, IMO, human nature to assert explanations. People have beliefs that are drilled into them from the youngest age. This gives them a ready explanation for events that they cannot understand with prosaic explanations. Strange thoughts, feelings, movements, and external happenings are easily inserted into a supernatural frame of reference.

Being skeptical is not a natural way to think. There are rare exceptions. Consider this: When I was quite young I had an out-of-body experience. I asked my mom why I could see myself from the outside. She evidently ascribed quite a bit of significance to this and quickly inserted it into her religious beliefs. I, on the other hand, didn’t. I’ve never thought much of it. Perhaps I was too young to make the connection, but I’ve never tried to explain it. Interestingly, in the last few years I’ve found out that researchers have been able to elicit out-of-body experiences in the lab through a stimulation of the angular gyrus.

Feelings of loss of personal agency in thoughts, movements, behaviors, etc. are pretty common and quite convincing. Wegner’s book The Illusion of Conscious Will goes into great detail about many such events that happen to regular people on a suprisingly frequent basis. (Great book, BTW. I strongly recommend it.) These sorts of things are easily ascribed to other agents by people who aren’t stupid or nuts.

So your mom has events that make her think that she’s somehow personally in contact w/ god. Welcome to the club. Strange thoughts, unexpected feelings, loss of agency, yadda yadda, serve to bolster her belief as they themselvse are explained by the very beliefs she has. Add to that the cognitive dissonance of worshiping week in and week out for her whole life, and it’s pretty easy to see how such beliefs could become pretty well ingrained in her haid.

So does that mean she’s nuts? No. Does it mean that she’s correct? No. It just means that she hasn’t successfully convinced herself of the fundamental accuracy and utility of a skeptical world view.

29

You’re probably right about the thread, but like I said, I thought that religious stuff would get chucked into this forum anyway. (Any moderator who disagrees can move this if they like, whatever.)

As for the dichotomy, I thought I had made it moderately clear that the problem isn’t that she asserts her beliefs, it’s that she claims to have had rather odd experiences in support of those beliefs – in pretty large numbers. But you’re right, this isn’t really a debate, so wether my dichotomy of options is limiting is moot.

I had hoped to perhaps frame a proper debate aroung the general case; ‘if one cannot discount a rather out-there religious claimant, how should one respond?’ Apparently the answer is 'ignore ‘em.’ Huh.

30

In the Middle Ages, people thought they were being awakened by succubi. Today, people think they are awakened by aliens. People’s hallucinations conform to their culture.

There are lots of physiological causes for these things. It is not an issue unless they are causing your mother to give all her money to the church - which is probably not a problem with LDS. As for whether you should believe there is something to them - are her visions of something in the future, which you could check, or of something she has no way of knowing? If not, and you give no evidence of any, there is nothing to explain. And if she is seeing the future, be sure to write down all the predictions, since one will come true by chance.

As Dylan said, “Them old dreams are only in your head.”

31

I think some of the problem is, it depends upon the claim and the person. If it doesn’t matter to the person how much evidence you can present refuting the claim or how lacking in evidence the claim is, what is the point? If you are unsure yourself about a specific claim, why not bring that up for discussion?

32

Boy, there’s a winning argument. “Give up atheism or you hate your mom!” It didn’t work when my mom tried it, it’s not going to work for you.

33

Well, your phrasing seems rather perjorative.

Spirit possession is pretty common around the world, but that doesn’t mean that those possessed are either truly possessed or nuts. There is at least one other explanation having to do with the subjective loss of will and the interpretation of that as being operated by an external agent. Wegner’s book makes a compelling case that this is actually a pretty prosaic and scientifically-based explanation, one that is parsimonious and liberating.

I have to ask, what do you mean by “discount a…religious claimant”? Do you mean to provide a prosaic explanation? If “she’s crazy” doesn’t fit, and if “she’s having reasonable misinterpretations of garden-variety happenings” doesn’t fit either, you’re not stuck with “her beliefs must be true.” You’re left with “I don’t know,” just like I was with my out-of-body experience. ::shrug:: I don’t know, but it was pretty cool.

The default position for something weird is “I don’t know.” If evidence for a prosaic explanation doesn’t answer the question of what happened, that doesn’t imply supernatural events. The case for supernatural events themselves needs to be made just as the cases for prosaic explanations need to be made. If Jane thinks that she is possessed by a spirit, it is up to her to establish that fact.

“Gosh, Jane, I can’t explain this weird stuff that’s happening; but neither have you explained it. You’re just jumping to the conclusion that it’s supernatural without making the case to show that is true.”

34

I’m gonna have to go with Mom’s a loon but I still love her.

I kind of get what the OP is trying to say. I think some of the poster saying “I don’t have to choose weather my Mom’s a loon or not” isn’t entirely true. It’s an invoulentary process when it happens.

It would be like me telling you. “Quick! don’t think of purple cows!”

35

If my otherwise apparently sane mother starts talking about visions, hearing voices and so forth, I would assume that she is developing a mental illness, or possibly running a high fever and hallucinating. I would not drop to my knees and start praying for mercy. There is a chance that I might attribute her behaviour to mass-hysteria or wishful thinking rather than a mental illness but it would honestly depend on the circumstances and what she was actually saying and how she was behaving, and how naive or easily led I consider her (obviously if dear old Mom has a habit of believing everything she reads and hears, I’m going to take what she says with a grain of salt). If she’d experienced this sort of thing at a church, I’d be much more inclined to write it off as being caught up in the moment with a group of people who are over-excited and open to persuasion.

Of course, if it was actually MY mother who was experiencing religious phenomena, I’d be calling the nearest mental health facility because my mother is a rabidly anti-religious atheist. Hearing messages from God would be a sign that something was seriously wrong with her.

36

Right, which is why I said “ask yourself”, not ask them. Of course a religious person is going to say that you just aren’t tuned into the right wavelength to hear the voices and see the visions. But as an agnostic, do you really believe that?

37

Interestingly, a neurological scientist is going to say the same thing:

— VS Ramachandran, MD, PhD, Phantoms in the Brain, p. 185

38

There are other options, of course. I have relatives that are probably similar, and my choice is to accept the fact that they are religious.

I don’t believe in God. Even if I think that religion is a giant fairy tale, I stop a little short of saying that anyone who believes is a lunatic, because I have some small understanding of the power of culture over one’s beliefs. When one grows up surrounded by people they respect and trust, who also believe in gods, it’s a pretty natural thing to follow suit. Some never question the examples of their culture–some are never exposed to that influence that makes them start to question, some lack the curiosity to do so on their own. Some question and then accept.

I can’t say they are crazy, though I think they are mistaken. Or maybe religiosity is a special category of lunacy, if you will. I consider it somewhat justifiable, in light of cultural influences and the scarcity of genuine critical thinking among us humans.

There are degrees of religiosity, and it can approach lunacy in some cases. The same can be said of many well-intentioned beliefs, like patriotism, or devotion to one’s job. I say pick your battles. If she’s asking you to sacrifice your firstborn to prove your faith in her god, then stand up to her. If she prays a little too long over the meal before she eats, just bow your head and wait. You can sneak a nibble if her eyes are closed.

39

Which seems to be the rub. If she says that she sees visions, then either she’s right and you have to rearrange your worldview; or she’s wrong and you have to commit her.

Except that the third option is to let her think whatever in hell she wants and ask her to afford you the same courtesy.

Now, be fair. I never said that your mother was bug fucking nuts. I said that I would consider her bug fucking nuts if she were my mother.

Wow. A seemingly sincere question that devolves into dismissiveness.

If you wanna have a debate, then have one. Acting like you have to commit your mother simply because you disagree with her religious visions, though, is the wrong way to begin.

40

Yes, but the fact that only certain species have color vision is easily explainable under an evolutionary model. IMO, it’s much harder to accept that a God that ostensibly created mankind, and desires for all of mankind to hear His message, would only endow some of us with the ability. It requires the acceptance of either a non-omnipotent or non-benevolent God.

And as for his first question - Yes, from a scientific standpoint, this “revealed” truth IS inferior for a very simple reason: We are not dependent on the subjective experience of “color” to know that different wavelengths of light exist. There is ample empirical corroborating evidence. In fact, the visible spectrum is only a small fraction of the range of wavelengths that exist. If all we knew about radiation were our experience of “color”, we wouldn’t even know that other types of radiation exist.

Any scientist worth his salt knows that subjective thoughts and feelings that cannot be shown to correspond to empirically verifiable external events, have much less evidentiary weight than those that can be verified. This guy doesn’t seem to know the difference. But he has subtly and cleverly shifted the burden of proof to his opponents. Temporal lobe involvement is not an argument against God; LACK OF EVIDENCE is the best argument. If a scientist is positing God as a scientifically provable phenomenon (a foolish endeavor, IMO), it is up to him to provide the evidence. If his “evidence” consists of subjective thoughts and feelings, and these feelings can be shown to be reproducable without God, then it casts doubt on the evidence. It doesn’t disprove God, and nobody is claiming it does.

Just more philosophical garbage masquerading as science.