hackenslash wrote:
I would contend that it's precisely that circumstance, when you have your own personal revelation, that the spidey-sense should be tingling the most. The human brain is a virtual-reality generator par excellence. In a circumstance of personal revelation, that's when I become most skeptical.

Pretty much. If God popped out of a cloud and wrote in flaming letters "I AM THE LORD THY GOD" across the sky I'd figure someone slipped acid in my drink. If it happened again I'd get a brain MRI pronto.

hackenslash wrote:

backmarker wrote:I agree that testimony can be unreliable, but if it is worthless, what good is a study to me?

Well, a rigorous study isn't merely testimony, and such studies have been conducted. Testimony is worthless.

How are the results of a study communicated, if not by testimony?

laklak wrote:

hackenslash wrote:
I would contend that it's precisely that circumstance, when you have your own personal revelation, that the spidey-sense should be tingling the most. The human brain is a virtual-reality generator par excellence. In a circumstance of personal revelation, that's when I become most skeptical.

Pretty much. If God popped out of a cloud and wrote in flaming letters "I AM THE LORD THY GOD" across the sky I'd figure someone slipped acid in my drink. If it happened again I'd get a brain MRI pronto.

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

backmarker wrote:

hackenslash wrote:

backmarker wrote:I agree that testimony can be unreliable, but if it is worthless, what good is a study to me?

Well, a rigorous study isn't merely testimony, and such studies have been conducted. Testimony is worthless.

How are the results of a study communicated, if not by testimony?

There's a process. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's called peer-review. What happens is that the person conducting the study writes down every detail of the study, including an abstract of what she's hoping to learn from the study, what hypotheses are being tested, the experimental design details, the conclusions reached and the reasoning by which said conclusions were reached, including details of all assumptions, error bars (most important this, as no measurement is meaningful without them). This is then sent to a panel of experts in the relevant field, who try to break it by showing a flaw somewhere. This isn't testimony.

Of course, you could pick up the details of the study and simply take them at face value, in which case you could reasonably describe your reading of it as testimony, but that doesn't actually make it testimony.

Testimony is worthless.

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

hackenslash wrote:
I would contend that it's precisely that circumstance, when you have your own personal revelation, that the spidey-sense should be tingling the most. The human brain is a virtual-reality generator par excellence. In a circumstance of personal revelation, that's when I become most skeptical.

Pretty much. If God popped out of a cloud and wrote in flaming letters "I AM THE LORD THY GOD" across the sky I'd figure someone slipped acid in my drink. If it happened again I'd get a brain MRI pronto.

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

Are LSD or brain lesions the only things that cause hallucinations or delusions, John?

Jebus fever can cause all sorts of wild hallucinations!

RS

@hackenslash: Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology? In any case, I personally find utility in whatever that thing is that I called "testimony." For example: if the traffic guy on the radio tells me the freeway is backed up, I take a different route to work. My reaction depends on circumstance, of course; If the traffic guy told me he saw Elvis today, I wouldn't believe him.

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

hackenslash wrote:
I would contend that it's precisely that circumstance, when you have your own personal revelation, that the spidey-sense should be tingling the most. The human brain is a virtual-reality generator par excellence. In a circumstance of personal revelation, that's when I become most skeptical.

Pretty much. If God popped out of a cloud and wrote in flaming letters "I AM THE LORD THY GOD" across the sky I'd figure someone slipped acid in my drink. If it happened again I'd get a brain MRI pronto.

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

Haldol and thorazine. I would not trust any experience that happened only to me.

The point is that the founders of all religions have had direct revelations. They have conversed directly with their gods and in some cases have been the illegitimate children of gods. None of these people had to rely on faith. They were witnesses and participants with the interactions of these gods.

Congrats to the thread starter for a very excellent topic idea. I also like the bit about kung fu masters/ magical gurus who boasted about having superpowers that are "not to be tested". There's only one more thing to add. The religious founders are usually considered the holiest of holiest. The prophet Mohamed, for example, was said to be the most perfect human being to ever live. Most perfect as in most perfect everything: most virtuous, most religious, most noble, most faithful (at least to God anyway), etc. So if such a perfectly religious man was not required to believe entirely on faith, then why are we all normal, less-than-perfect beings, expected to do more by believing entirely on faith? Perhaps we are actually more perfect than most perfect?

laklak wrote:

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

hackenslash wrote:
I would contend that it's precisely that circumstance, when you have your own personal revelation, that the spidey-sense should be tingling the most. The human brain is a virtual-reality generator par excellence. In a circumstance of personal revelation, that's when I become most skeptical.

Pretty much. If God popped out of a cloud and wrote in flaming letters "I AM THE LORD THY GOD" across the sky I'd figure someone slipped acid in my drink. If it happened again I'd get a brain MRI pronto.

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

Haldol and thorazine. I would not trust any experience that happened only to me.

What if you were sure that no drugs were involved because the doctors were testing for drugs too and it wasn't just you who saw this apparition but two of your friends also - but nobody else?

What if, what if, what if.... It never ends, does it?

If it isn't repeatable, independently verifiable, the very best you can call it is an "I don't know what the fuck it was".

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

Pretty much. If God popped out of a cloud and wrote in flaming letters "I AM THE LORD THY GOD" across the sky I'd figure someone slipped acid in my drink. If it happened again I'd get a brain MRI pronto.

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

Haldol and thorazine. I would not trust any experience that happened only to me.

What if you were sure that no drugs were involved because the doctors were testing for drugs too and it wasn't just you who saw this apparition but two of your friends also - but nobody else?

I meant I would start taking Haldol and Thorazine, because I'd be schizophrenic. If more than one person saw it, and it happened repeatedly, then I would look for other explanations. Rational, scientific explanations. What I wouldn't do is immediately jump to the conclusion that some deity was communicating with us. Here's the problem. Many people have seen ghosts, spirits, apparitions, sometimes multiple people have seen them. Sometimes they are seen repeatedly. However, whenever anyone tries to investigate, from a scientific, rational perspective, nothing happens. The spirits don't "cooperate", for some reason. Now, we can posit any number of reasons for this. Maybe cameras really do capture the spirit and they don't want to be trapped. Maybe they get their jollies fucking with us. Maybe it requires "faith" so see them. Or (this is my opinion) - they aren't fucking real.

laklak wrote:... they aren't fucking real.

I think that's the most likely explanation, and the best fit for the data, such as it is

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

Pretty much. If God popped out of a cloud and wrote in flaming letters "I AM THE LORD THY GOD" across the sky I'd figure someone slipped acid in my drink. If it happened again I'd get a brain MRI pronto.

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

Haldol and thorazine. I would not trust any experience that happened only to me.

What if you were sure that no drugs were involved because the doctors were testing for drugs too and it wasn't just you who saw this apparition but two of your friends also - but nobody else?

How do you know your friends aren't lying just to placate you?

laklak wrote:

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

John Platko wrote:

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

Haldol and thorazine. I would not trust any experience that happened only to me.

What if you were sure that no drugs were involved because the doctors were testing for drugs too and it wasn't just you who saw this apparition but two of your friends also - but nobody else?

I meant I would start taking Haldol and Thorazine, because I'd be schizophrenic. If more than one person saw it, and it happened repeatedly, then I would look for other explanations. Rational, scientific explanations. What I wouldn't do is immediately jump to the conclusion that some deity was communicating with us. Here's the problem. Many people have seen ghosts, spirits, apparitions, sometimes multiple people have seen them. Sometimes they are seen repeatedly. However, whenever anyone tries to investigate, from a scientific, rational perspective, nothing happens. The spirits don't "cooperate", for some reason. Now, we can posit any number of reasons for this. Maybe cameras really do capture the spirit and they don't want to be trapped. Maybe they get their jollies fucking with us. Maybe it requires "faith" so see them. Or (this is my opinion) - they aren't fucking real.

Interesting. I tend to just trust my eyes until proven wrong.

Shrunk wrote:

John Platko wrote:

laklak wrote:

John Platko wrote:

Fair enough, but if the MRI comes back ok and it happens a third time, what then?

Haldol and thorazine. I would not trust any experience that happened only to me.

What if you were sure that no drugs were involved because the doctors were testing for drugs too and it wasn't just you who saw this apparition but two of your friends also - but nobody else?

How do you know your friends aren't lying just to placate you?

Ohhhh, I never thought of that - it would explain a lot though.

Here are a number of things that you and friends might want to look at:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/psych ... 42188.html