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Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

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    Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

    Just a thought, after discussing with an atheist about the idea of "souls". How can I know that I didn't just replace my previous religion with a belief system that just allows me to like things that I want and that, subconsciously, I don't believe it at all, but I feel I have to believe in something? That it is just comforting?

    For the record, the discussion on souls was that souls cannot exist (their side) in any meaningful ways, and certainly can't be eternal, as either they do all the work of the brain, in which case we wouldn't need a brain, or that the brain does all the work in processing sensory information, storing and retrieving, in which case if the soul is eternal, it has nothing to work with and may as well not exist. I don't know if that made any sense, but if it does, what do you make of that argument?
    I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
    Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
    But that day you know I left my money
    And I thought of you only
    All that copper glowing fine

    #2
    Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

    Belief is a conscious choice. You can choose to believe whatever you like. Faith is something you choose to believe in spite of evidence to the contrary. Faith is a very special gift for those who truly have it. I have very little religious faith but I believe in deity and I believe that I have a part of deity within me. That part, that spark of deity, is in some way connected to my soul which is a spiritual thing. It is, perhaps, similar to the mitochondrion that live within our cells. We eat and breath and they turn it into energy that we can use. They don't know we exist and they just live in their world that happens to be in use. The soul provides a connection to deity and we live within it. We are part of it's existence. When I center, I "feel" that connection, the complete union between body and soul. Unlike the mitochondrion I am aware of where I live.
    I recognize that not everyone feels their spark of deity and that some ignore it for so long that they can't feel it but for me it is as real as the rest of me and it is the best of me.
    The Dragon sees infinity and those it touches are forced to feel the reality of it.
    I am his student and his partner. He is my guide and an ominous friend.

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      #3
      Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

      Does it "click" for you now, your current belief system? Does it make you feel whole, and right, complete and happy? If so then no I don't think its just comforting. I think this conversation has brought doubts to the for front of your brain that you have subconsciously been having for a while , maybe not even doubt but guilt for changing your beliefs. So which is it guilt or doubt? Do you have faith?

      I also believe that a person is going to do what they want regardless of their belief system. Case in point, premarital sex, as a christian and a muslim this is wrong and yet hundreds, thousands, and millions of christians and muslims have premarital sex AND live with the person before marriage. Very few people ignore what they want to do because of their religion. I know Jews that eat pork, I know Muslims who drink alcohol so to say you change your beliefs because it allows you to do things you like is a false statement. Why did you change your beliefs? What called to you? What turned you away from you old faith? Do these ideas still hold true or do you now believe something completely different?

      The brain and the soul are not the same thing. Your brain are muscles that tell your body how to function. It tells your lungs to inhale, and exhale, your heart to beat. This is going to sound lame.. or at least to me it does but, your brain is the motherboard to a computer. It can and does run on its on but it has no direction, no fire, no passion, even with AI it does not feel, and your soul is your essence, your passions, your hatreds, you feelings and emotions its what makes you human. Its what give your body life and keeps it from being just a machine.
      "If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." -- Sirius Black

      "Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so."-- Ford Prefect

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        #4
        Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

        The materialist argument just doesn't work: the philosopher Karl Popper called it close to humbug, as its proponents are always saying things could be explained without actually doing it! As for the mind and brain argument, my mind is composing this reply, but I still need a computer to deliver it. Furthermore, a brain state cannot explain a mental state. An alien with no colour vision could perhaps identify the brain state which occurs when I see blue, but that doesn't give them any idea of what "seeing blue" means. If you taste a spoonful of something and recognise it as honey, you do so because the perception and the memory both involve the sensation called the taste of honey. But the brain state associated with taste and the one associated with memory are different, so how can they both explain the mental state? These are simple examples: philosophers have many more arguments.

        Materialism also requires that we regard all religious experiences as delusional. Since about a third of the population have had one, that's untenable. American surveys have shown that people who report them are no more likely than average to register as suggestible in psychological tests. A British survey showed that they were actually more common among the better educated.

        Anyone who calls themself an atheist is fundamentally irrational. You can say that you are an agnostic if the evidence for the divine doesn't convince you, but the atheist claims to know that something doesn't exist, which is impossible. If someone knew that there had been life on Mars, it would be from producing a fossil: what could one produce to prove that there had never been such life?

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          #5
          Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

          Originally posted by Briton View Post
          Just a thought, after discussing with an atheist about the idea of "souls". How can I know that I didn't just replace my previous religion with a belief system that just allows me to like things that I want and that, subconsciously, I don't believe it at all, but I feel I have to believe in something? That it is just comforting?
          You can't.

          And neither can they.

          Sure, they can say all day long that there is no evidence of this nor that, and there isn't. But absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

          We now have confirmation of gravitational waves. Hypotheses go years without confirmation. Some of which takes billions upon billions of dollars and thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of man-hours to confirm. There are some very simple science experiments that have been set up that have taken decades to get results, some of which are the only eyewitness verification of seemingly very simple things that we have.

          And, for that matter, we learn that we were wrong all along, all the time in science.

          How do you know that everything you think you know isn't wrong?

          You don't.


          No one does.

          You either do what you think is right on what you know and what you feel and how you experience the world, or you let the not knowing drive you crazy.


          They don't know that they are right any better than you do. They just haven't confronted the idea that they might be wrong. Maybe because its never occured to them, maybe because they need their comfort of certainty

          Either way, (IMO) it takes more guts to doubt AND have faith than it does to either JUST have faith or JUST have doubt. Its about the balance, not the surity.


          For the record, the discussion on souls was that souls cannot exist (their side) in any meaningful ways, and certainly can't be eternal, as either they do all the work of the brain, in which case we wouldn't need a brain, or that the brain does all the work in processing sensory information, storing and retrieving, in which case if the soul is eternal, it has nothing to work with and may as well not exist. I don't know if that made any sense, but if it does, what do you make of that argument?

          Here's the problem--what is a soul? You have to figure out what something is, what it does, where it goes, and how it works before you can decide how it is or is not limited and whether it is or is not important.

          Not being important isn't a case for nonexistence.

          A soul and a brain, in no school of thought, anywhere that I am familiar with, takes the place of the brain, and whether or not it actually exists is immaterial in this arguement--they just don't carry the same function. Its like saying a shoe can't exist because Gremlins are real.
          Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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            #6
            Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

            Just this simple saying,"what works,works!,period)
            MAGIC is MAGIC,black OR white or even blood RED

            all i ever wanted was a normal life and love.
            NO TERF EVER WE belong Too.
            don't stop the tears.let them flood your soul.




            sigpic

            my new page here,let me know what you think.


            nothing but the shadow of what was

            witchvox
            http://www.witchvox.com/vu/vxposts.html

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              #7
              Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

              If you look at a belief you have and you look way down deep into yourself and don't side eye the idea, then just go with that.
              Satan is my spirit animal

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                #8
                Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

                Originally posted by Briton View Post
                Just a thought, after discussing with an atheist about the idea of "souls". How can I know that I didn't just replace my previous religion with a belief system that just allows me to like things that I want and that, subconsciously, I don't believe it at all, but I feel I have to believe in something? That it is just comforting?
                You can't: faith is, by definition, the belief in something that hasn't or cannot be confirmed. But just because it's not something you can measure or physically show, doesn't make it wrong or not real. I don't have the science behind why I like the music I do. Science can show my Dopamine levels that prove something makes me happy, but it can't prove why something does in every case. That doesn't make it not true. It just makes it something a part of you.
                Army of Darkness: Guardians of the Chat

                Honorary Nord.

                Habbalah Vlogs

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                  #9
                  Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

                  Thanks guys, these comments have helped, collectively as well as individually.
                  I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
                  Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
                  But that day you know I left my money
                  And I thought of you only
                  All that copper glowing fine

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Replacement therapy: Did I switch one false belief for another?

                    Even as an atheist I am fully aware that I picked this belief system because it made me feel comfortable.
                    Satan is my spirit animal

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