Belief in religion is real, even if objects of belief aren’t.
Suppose one or more entities exist that are as far beyond humans as humans are from ants. If the big guys are gods to us, then we’re gods to ants. But have you created any ants lately?
Humans could communicate with ants by laying chemical trails and probably by aiming modulated ultrasonics at their antennae. Could ants recognize any delusion?
Since Occam’s Razor teaches us that tragedies more likely result from incompetence than deliberate evil, so are hallucinations more likely due to trauma than magical beings. A problem with magical beings is explaining where they come from. What existed before existence? What created a creator? What evidence supports the answers to those questions?
Religion seems to have a pretty strong heritable component. Cite for the following quote
The wording is a little awkward but once people enter early adulthood and can choose for themselves religiousness seems to be about 44% explained by genetics. In comparison the relatively immutable “Big Five” personality traits fall in a range between 40-60% heritable. Sexuality has seen a lot of twin studies with a broad range of results but one review study I saw described sexuality as likely being about half genetic. The disposition to religion/spirituality seems to be almost as strong. Strong social pressures backed by violence didn’t end homosexuality. Conversion therapy doesn’t work. I would not expect debunking religion via time machine to be a lot more effective than praying the gay away if it has any effect. We probably are not going to affect a significant number of people who are born with a strong predisposition to seek out religion.
We might be able to affect how they choose to practice and spur shifts between religions. Even there I am skeptical. Richard Thaler who received the Nobel Prize a few years ago for his groundbreaking work in behavioral economics used the term quasi-rational to describe how people actually behave. We have the capacity to think rationally. Our brains also have deeper levels of simpler and faster pattern matching that operates below the level of strict rationality. We have a tendency to use some of that reasoning ability to simply rationalize those pre-existing and less rational opinions.
The attempt might even strengthen belief in the debunked religion. The Debunking Handbook is a short read, free, and is relevant. It was a collaboration between a climate scientist and a cognitive scientist. It lays out three ways that attempts to debunk misinformation can actually strengthen the belief in that misinformation. How the results of the time machine data are presented would matter. Sometimes facts are not sufficient to debunking. Sometimes they can even be counterproductive.
We shouldn’t ignore the evidence about how human brains actually work when discussing ideas about how to influence humans.
Well they have with the God helmet. But the problem is having it explained as a science experiment turns it into a parlor trick, not a revelation from god.
Prepare to be rich then. Ayahuasca is the drug you are looking for. Many, many people claim to have met/seen/experience God while on it… and have for thousands of years. Maybe even Moses.And Sir Paul has made the same claims as well. Hundreds of people head to South America every year to communicate with God. Dimethyltryptamine is the Jesus drug.
But it’s not just drugs, what about the amazing things savants can do - that we can’t - with the same brains. Think they’re different? There are about 30 known cases of “acquired savant syndrome.”
The point is that the brain is a complex organ capable of affecting our perception of reality without us being able to control it. Occam’s razor suggests a hiccup in the brain rather than a magical, omnipotent being that created everything and visits you in your mind.
No offense, but I would be surprised if you let a miracle change your stance.
I have seen several miracles firsthand and the shocking part to me wasn’t that the person was healed or the supernatural event took place. Instead, it was the seemingly unlimited capacity for people to deny it, even when they saw it with their own eyes. This also seems to be true for those who claim to be religious.
One time in particular there was a disabled woman had been coming to church for around 3 years who was well known and liked. She was suddenly healed and about 1/2 of her so called “friends” rejected her and claimed she must have been faking her disability for the last 3 years. These weren’t atheists; they were church-going people. She continued to attend for a couple more years but eventually left because it was too uncomfortable to continue.
In my experience seeing miracles do not cause people to believe in God. Personal experiences/encounters with God cause people to believe in God.
As best I can tell it’s usually youthful indoctrination that does it. Typically “personal experiences/encounters with God” happen to those who already believe.
My disbelief in god is proof god doesn’t exist; if he wanted me to believe in him, I would.
I mean, he could be real and not want me to believe in him. Or he’s not omniscient. But religious people never want to agree to those things.
(For what it’s worth, I consider myself a deist; sure, I believe in some sort of higher power that gives order to the universe, but I don’t believe in a conscious god, and I don’t worship ancient mythology either).
– I had Coyote strike up a conversation with me out in the fields once. That didn’t lead me to think Coyote created the universe; but then, from what little I understand of that framework, I don’t think Coyote’s thought to have done so.
Interesting, thanks for the link. But I don’t see anywhere in that blurb where it said that some of the societies had “zero gods.” It sounded more to me like they all had some form of religion. Or did you read the actual book?
I have never once heard or heard of a christian being talked to by Coyote. It’s my understanding that other theists too also only ever spoken to by their own gods - or rather, only by entities that their existing beliefs allow for the existence of. This suggests strongly to me that while experiences happen, they are interpreted by the receiver in the context of the receiver’s beliefs. Now, this does allow nonbelievers to have visions of God, Jesus, or whatever the local deities are; they are aware of the stories of the entities, and if suddenly gripped by a spiritual feeling they may end up interpreting it as coming from the gods they’re aware of.
I feel that this serves as a complete explanation for religious experiences. Well, that and dreams and hallucinations (chemically induced or otherwise).
Yes, I possess the actual book, acquired around 1980. It’s fascinating. It’s not public domain or I’d have linked to that. But the paperback isn’t too costly. Look on AbeBooks.
Well, you see- you’d need a magical Time machine, and of course once you have a MAGIC time machine and have butt-fucked the laws of physics, then why not miracles and angels?
So, how would you find the Birth of Jesus? What year and date would you go back to and were? Bethlehem isnt very large but when you consider outlying buildings, well, no way to pin down a location.
Now sure, you could just pick the Church of the Nativity and go back over say a decade. All that proves is the Church of the Nativity is in the wrong place. A lot of people already find that doubtful. And it doesnt really matter.
The Crucifixion? Well, we kinda have a date but about a month span- a three year span. So, you go to Golgotha and watch every execution for three- four years, around Passover or so. But which one is Jesus?
Then you have to follow Him to His Tomb. You could probably prove that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is not located on His tomb, but a lot of people already find that doubtful. And it doesnt really matter.
Finding Jesus in order to follow Him back to disprove miracles or birth would likely require that magic time machine.
I am pretty sure the Sermon happened. But in Aramaic, not Hebrew.
But just how do you find it? What date do you pick? And where? The Mount of Beatitudes? Ok, but then if you dont see a Sermon there in say a three year span- does that just say the traditional location is wrong? Or that the Sermon never happened?
And sure, there was a Big Fucking Flood, which may have flooded all of *their *“world”. Several in fact. But we know not the whole world.
There’s some decent amount of evidence for the historical Jesus, more than- given the state of ancient records- we’d expect to find. We have hashed this out several times and Cecil states firmly the evidence is convincing.
But of course believers wont accept any amount of proof. “Believers” in this case being diehard atheists who NEED to believe that Jesus never lived, despite the consensus among historians and the evidence.
Well, I have been a Christian in the past and now could be called a doubting Christian, and when I took peyote as part of a legit Shaman ceremony, I did not see a Christian Experience. Nor Coyote, to be frank.
But let us say you DO see creatures in the flames? Demons? Salamanders (the mythical kind) , Fire elementals? Shulawitsi? You just call the little creatures by the name that you are used to. However, it doesnt matter what you CALL them, *you still see small mystical fire creatures. *