# Of delusional believers and naive positivist scientism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 24, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-delusional-believers-and-naive-positivist-scientism/507529 "2009-08-24T18:05:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 21
**Author:** ![Maia\_s\_Well](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Maia\_s\_Well](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maia_s_Well)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-delusional-believers-and-naive-positivist-scientism/507529/21 "2009-08-24T21:15:04Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I actually do not believe in the supernatural. 😉 If it exists, it’s natural. > > I’m pretty much an extreme skeptic in that I don’t put that much stock in belief beyond its utilitarian usage. For the most part I think human beings have very little clue about what the true nature of reality is and that all of our models even the best ones are woefully inadequate. That far from being at a level of high advancement in science we are actually at the toddler stage where we are just learning to walk and talk. Yes, yes, this! I appreciated what you wrote about direct experience, as well as what **the Hamster King** wrote about the problems with using, you know, words and all. I love it when people here are able to articulate thoughts I’ve had which I have not been able to articulate myself. And sometimes even give them names or identify a particular philosophy for me. More, please. How about this…Is it reasonable to think that, when millions of people believe something, there might just be a grain of truth buried in there somewhere? And by truth, I mean something along the lines of a common feeling or experience that most of that group have had? It seems to me that the fact that the conclusions folks might draw from this type of experience could be argued as illogical, but that doesn’t mean that the original experience they might have had was imagined or a result of mental illness, hallucination, or “imagination”. Here’s a made up example to try to make what I’m saying more clear. Lots of people have said they had the “experience” of being abducted, taken away, and “probed” under bright lights by beings with big heads and tiny mouths (or none at all). Many described these beings as talking without moving their mouths. These individuals relate these experiences and say that they were “abducted by aliens” (as their conclusion). Well, I’m not gonna sit here and say with complete and utter certainty that they weren’t, but it seems highly unlikely (seems like somebody official would’ve noticed alien spacecraft or someone might have had a decent camera handy). But what if what these folks are actually remembering is the moment of their births? Being “abducted”, laid out on a table, bright lights overhead, surrounded by figures that all look alike, whose mouths are all covered with masks, and getting something stuck up their butt (rectal themometer)? I’m not saying that I believe this either, but it seems far more likely to me. I just think when we throw out personal experience, we mebbe are throwing out the baby with the bathwater (which is likely to give the baby traumatic memories that will arise and go on Jerry Springer later). hee hee. In other words, is it possible that the science-minded might be missing out on a few possibilities? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-delusional-believers-and-naive-positivist-scientism/507529)._