rationalskepticism.org

John Platko wrote:

trubble76 wrote:

John Platko wrote:

trubble76 wrote:

I agree that your god is a figment of your imagination but as you seem to acknowledge this, why continue to believe in it?

For the efficiency of my mental process, especially involving areas concerning morality and psychology. I seem to recall writing a paper about that some time ago, now where did I put that - hmmm it must be around here somewhere.

I'm not sure that I agree with you that being deliberately wrong aids efficiency of your mental process. Surely aiming for not being wrong at all would be better at achieving that goal?

It's not about being deliberately wrong. More like being randomly wrong which causes branches to knew idea spaces where new good ideas can be mined. And being able to locate previously mined areas discovered by great religious thinkers so that I can better understand and explore the space they have mapped out.

I don't think that your process bears any similarity to science, it surprises me that you do. There is nothing of science in any of the imagined gods in the world.

Surely you'll acknowledge that imagination plays an important role in science - right?

My religious process is that I imagine (or contemplate what others have imagined) and then I check to see if what I imagine fits in with what I or others observe. Sometimes I need to do an experiment to sus things out.

If what you did was scientific, then you would get the same results as everyone else. What I think you may be doing is fabricating a flimsy, made-in-china crappy knock-off, a bit like how ID sort of pretends to be science but isn't.

I wouldn't want to give the impression that religion = science. But some scientific practices are useful to religious practice. When you're imagining stuff it's good not to loose sight of reality.