Religion A perfectly rational belief

DougShrapnel · #1 12-10-2006, 11:10 PM

Where the retina connects to the optic nerve, the mind forces itself to fill in the details of the missing information. Don't believe me look here. Filling in the details of the unknown is a marker of a healthy brain. When people say that the religious are being irrational it's not entirely true. If you don't want to hear any of this mumbo jumbo regarding your brain filling in the details regarding religion, because you think it might change your mind. Don't worry it can't. Thinking rationally cannot override the brains directive to fill in the details. So go ahead and for a brief moment it time, imagine what the world would look like if we filled in the blind spots regarding our origins, and unknown causes of natural phenomenon.

You should be very familiar with what you would expect. It's a well known concept of the god of the gaps. Gods control the lighting, and the winds and volcanos and the moon and the sun, when our brains fill in the details that we are blind to. We now know that evolution is a much more likely story than creationism in the bible. But it was perfectly rational to believe creationism before we had the knowledge that we have now. We did not have a choice but to fill in the details.

Although god of the gaps is a descriptive what. It doesn't address how or why. How is that the brain forces you to fill in something regarding ones unknown knowledge about your existence. You have no choice in the matter. You can not stop it from doing it. And it's a damn good thing that the brain does this, without asking our permission. We would be lost without it.

So we atheists come at xtians with charges of irrationality, it is a weak charge. They are being very rational. Their mind has filled in the details regarding the context of their surroundings. ID as a religion might be a fairly perfect filling in of details. But it fails when we use ID to overwrite the knowledge we have.

The main two things that are left are the creation (cause of creation) of the universe, and the emergence (cause of emergence) of life. I implore you to not go down the same road that is proven to be at least in part the quite intelligent and necessary context based making stuff up.

edit: horid typos

vhawk01 · #2 12-10-2006, 11:17 PM

Did you post this when drunk? Not really because of the content, but this is like an insane number of typos for you.

madnak · #3 12-10-2006, 11:20 PM

You're not arguing that religion is rational, you're arguing it's in the human nature. I agree with you. But that doesn't make it rational. What you "fill in" with regard to vision, or memory, etc, is frequently inaccurate. This inaccuracy increases as things become "stranger" or further removed from concrete practical reality.

And this "filling in" is certainly not rational. It's not necessarily "irrational," as irrationality tends to imply conscious thought, but the brain fills things in according to ingrained patterns, not reasoned calculations. It's almost literally a "knee-jerk" type of response. And yes, I think using a knee-jerk response to determine the basis of life, the universe, and everything is irrational.

DougShrapnel · #4 12-10-2006, 11:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Did you post this when drunk? Not really because of the content, but this is like an insane number of typos for you.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes. Sorry I'll try to edit. I'm also much worse than average regarding my english skills.

vhawk01 · #5 12-10-2006, 11:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Did you post this when drunk? Not really because of the content, but this is like an insane number of typos for you.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes. Sorry I'll try to edit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nah, its perfectly readable, just wondering.

DougShrapnel · #6 12-10-2006, 11:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You're not arguing that religion is rational, you're arguing it's in the human nature. I agree with you. But that doesn't make it rational. What you "fill in" with regard to vision, or memory, etc, is frequently inaccurate. This inaccuracy increases as things become "stranger" or further removed from concrete practical reality.

And this "filling in" is certainly not rational. It's not necessarily "irrational," as irrationality tends to imply conscious thought, but the brain fills things in according to ingrained patterns, not reasoned calculations. It's almost literally a "knee-jerk" type of response. And yes, I think using a knee-jerk response to determine the basis of life, the universe, and everything is irrational.

[/ QUOTE ]I believe it's rational. What our brain tells us is true, we believe. We have no choice in this matter. The main thing we can do is to adjust our actions based off of what we know is the likely misrepresentation of reality. The other things that we can do is adjust those items that our minds use to fill in the details. This is much harder.

madnak · #7 12-10-2006, 11:35 PM

That's not true - we have plenty of choice. It is limited in many ways, but we certainly have it. At bare minimum we can take the position of bunny, who has no "choice" but to believe in Christianity but still accepts that his belief is ultimately irrational.

Certainly we can choose not to merely accept our first impression. We can choose to examine our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and become better, richer people for it. Most people don't bother - that makes them rational? No.

vhawk01 · #8 12-10-2006, 11:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You're not arguing that religion is rational, you're arguing it's in the human nature. I agree with you. But that doesn't make it rational. What you "fill in" with regard to vision, or memory, etc, is frequently inaccurate. This inaccuracy increases as things become "stranger" or further removed from concrete practical reality.

And this "filling in" is certainly not rational. It's not necessarily "irrational," as irrationality tends to imply conscious thought, but the brain fills things in according to ingrained patterns, not reasoned calculations. It's almost literally a "knee-jerk" type of response. And yes, I think using a knee-jerk response to determine the basis of life, the universe, and everything is irrational.

[/ QUOTE ]I believe it's rational. What our brain tells us is true, we believe. We have no choice in this matter. The main thing we can do is to adjust our actions based off of what we know is the likely misrepresentation of reality. The other things that we can do is adjust those items that our minds use to fill in the details. This is much harder.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont know about that. I can spin around in circles for a while and my brain is telling me the world is spinning. But I don't go screaming out of my house to alert the authorities. I try to understand the shortcomings of my hardwiring (I'm pretty uncomfortable saying that, but lets go with this metaphor for the purposes of the discussion) and try to compensate. I think THAT is the rational thing to do.

DougShrapnel · #9 12-10-2006, 11:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]
That's not true - we have plenty of choice. It is limited in many ways, but we certainly have it. At bare minimum we can take the position of bunny, who has no "choice" but to believe in Christianity but still accepts that his belief is ultimately irrational.

Certainly we can choose not to merely accept our first impression. We can choose to examine our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and become better, richer people for it. Most people don't bother - that makes them rational? No.

[/ QUOTE ]Ah but having the belief vs keeping the belief in face of overwhelming evidence are different. We cannot stop our mind from filling in the details, any more than we can stop it from controlling our heart rate and blood presure. Which I guess it can be done, but it very difficult to do. If my pulse is 250 I can't change it by will alone,even tho it's likey to kill me. I can only take those actions to get my heart rate down.

DougShrapnel · #10 12-10-2006, 11:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I dont know about that. I can spin around in circles for a while and my brain is telling me the world is spinning. But I don't go screaming out of my house to alert the authorities. I try to understand the shortcomings of my hardwiring (I'm pretty uncomfortable saying that, but lets go with this metaphor for the purposes of the discussion) and try to compensate. I think THAT is the rational thing to do.

[/ QUOTE ] what do you do when your brian tells you the world is spinning? If you are like me you lay down until it stops. Soon your mind stop telling you it's spinning and everything is OK. But in the case where your mind is telling you that the creation of the universe, and the creation of you, is God. You have few options but to "lay down" until the spinning stops.