General > RANT

Why do otherwise bright people beleive stupid things?

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EricL:
I have a good friend who plans her week by her horoscope.  I have another who regularly visits palm readers and claims a tarrot card reading fortune teller told her things she couldn't possibly otherwise know.  My wife and I have dinner with another group of friends every few months, several of which are die hard creationists, beleivng the earth to be less than 10k years old.

Almost to a person, these otherwise intelligent, rational people who delight in inteligent, civil debate on highly opinionated and stongly held topics as diverse as sports or politics or education not only truly believe these irrational things but treat any discussion or challenge of them as a personal attack and will suffer no discussion of them however civil.

I like Dawkins and Harris's meme hypothesis as an explanation as to how and why certain shared ideas/concepts are what they are and have evolved to defend themsevles in such a way.  I also buy into Dennet's notion that there may be an evolutionary advatange to asigning an intentional stance to such things as the weather and that religion and other supernatural beleifs are an outgrowth of or at least are reinforced by this.  But this is not what this rant is about.

Recently, I actually think I may have managed what many 'active athesists' who enguage in endless debate with entrenched creationists hope to acheive but seldom do.   I have a neice attending a Lutherian college here in Seattle.  Her duel major is english lit and religious studies.   She is a very bright, unassuming kid (she scored 800 out of 800 on her verbal SAT).  A discussion of her major and her (low) prospects for employment at a recent family gathering led to a surprisingly frank and civil discussion of her personal religious beliefs.  In this discussion, I put forward the argument that beleiving in the supernatural without evidence is both ignorant and arrogant and that she in particular, is ignorant of her own arrogance.

Needless to say, as someone who sees herself as a do-gooder out to save the world, she was a bit taken aback at the accusation of arrogance.   Basically, I put forward the argument that when someone beleives supernatural things that contradict the findings of tens of thousands of dedicated, hard working scientists whose life work is to seek the real answers and who publish their results in peer reviewed research literature in full view for anyone to replicate or invalidate, when they beleive these things and not only expect others to do so but activly seek to pursuede them to do so, without evidence, they are not only mildly arrogant but in fact are the eptomy of arrogance.  What is arrogance if not holding an unwavering position, claiming only they know the right anwser all evidence to the contrary and the refusual to even entertain the possibility that they may be mistaken?

Anyway, long story short, she sent me email - she's changing her major to journelism and dropping religious studies.  This is a huge thing for her not the least because her father, my brother-in-law, is a Lutherian minister.  I don't expect he's very happy with me at the moment.   But she's doing it.  

Perhaps our discussion was simply the straw that broke an already overloaded camel's back, but it is the first time in my personal expereince where such a discussion has ever resulted in any significant movement of an entrenched position by the supernaturally inclined.  Perhaps I should look and see if my horoscope from last week said something about changing another's life for the better...  

Peter:
 

Wow.

So you have basicly confinced someone to change her religious major to journalism, in a religious discussion.

Whenever I try to bring up the creastism/evolution discussion, for some people it is almost seen as a personal attack. I can't even remember much creastism/evolution discussion in family spheres. With some family-members I have avoided any discussion like it.

Discussions about religion tend to go to nowhere, the ones I had, atleast.  

And I check my horoscope regurly, if I go to school I pick up multiple free newspapers. And I look whitch newspaper horoscope is best.

Testlund:
I believe in having an open mind and not being stuck to one belief nomatter what. When it comes to religion most people are totally atheists or they totally believes the bible and never questions there own beliefs. I have been a non beleiver in the supernatural most of my life because I haven't encountered any evidence of it and I have never experienced any such thing myself.
But a relative to me was visiting a medium last year and was told stuff that the medium couldn't possibly guess. The session was recorded on tape and I listened to it.
Under the session the medium said he was visited by passed away relatives to our family and those spirits talked to him under the session, explaining things that only we could know. Some spirit even told my relative (through the medium) what she had been doing before she went to the session.
Even my relative's dog that had to be put to sleep because it had grown too old and weak showed up under the session, saying she shouldn't feel any regrets for  that, and also told who used to feed it in the family and taking it for a walk.
The medium said the dog couldn't talk to him directly but his thoughts were translated to him from another spirit.
I'm just asking how is this possible? My relative didn't told him any thing. She hardly said a word through the whole session.
I've seen similar programs on TV but I've thought maybe it was all made up and all the people had been told what to say.
Also I've found some very interesting information about what the spirit world is through some readings which is quite interesting.
The bible though is mostly crap made up by people, and religion is mostly used for controlling and suppressing people. So I am against religious societies because they missinterpret what Muhammed and Jesus tried to preach.
I sound like a religious myself now but I'm not. I just think there might very well be a spirit world.
If you can believe in the 4th dimension and Einsteins relativity theory you can as well belive in a spirit world.
I think the concept of time as the forth dimension is something we've made up. What is time but memories and thoughts we have about the future.
I don't belive there is a past or future. It's only the present and movement of events.
We think about time as some movie playing by in a linear way.
I don't understand how you could possibly travel back in time if you move faster than light? Where would you move? Somewhere far out in space to see if the pictures of the earth will catch up??

When it comes to horoscope, don't read the weekly ones in papers. That's not astrology. Do a thorough one where all the position of the planets are counted in. I don't know about anyone who've done it where the information wasn't true about that person.
I know it is scaringly accurate for me!

Numsgil:
I find that the only true believers are the agnostics.  That goes for things other than religion too.

Most "rational" "scientific" people are just as pig headed and stubborn as the supposedly "irrational" "religious" folk.  How many times in science has a new theory been met not just with skepticism but with disdain or even open hostility?  People in general like to believe that what they've been told in the past is true.  The only trustworthy ones are those that realize they don't know one way or another.

Imagine this: you're time traveling to Celtic Britain circa 500 AD.  You're at a banquet in ancient Dumnonia, celebrating some king, warlord, birth, victory, or whatever.  You're offered wine (or ale, mead, whatever the spirit of choice is in ancient Britain at the time) in a lead cup.

You inform your gracious host that you won't drink from a lead cup, because of the possibility of lead poisoning.  He asks for clarification.  You say that scholars in your time have determined that drinking from a lead cup makes you sick.

"Ah," your gracious Lord says, "your Gods forbid it."  You explain that there aren't any Gods involved, it's determined through experimentation involving rats and mice and lots of time.

"Of course, I understand.  Our Druids do similar rituals before we prepare for battle, to see what fate the Gods have decreed.  Your priests have conversed with your un-Gods, who proclaim lead to be a cursed metal."

No, no, you explain.  It's not at all like that.  These scholars must study for their entire lives.

"As must our Druids," says your honorable Lord.

The results are verified independently by different groups, you try to explain.

"Our Druids often share the Gods' secrets with each other.  It's the way of Knowledge."

The point of my little made up metaphor is that ultimately, to people untrained in the science in question, the scientists doing the study might as well be Druids scattering bones in the dirt to commune with the Gods.  Lay people always take things on faith.  Whether in science or in religion.

So unless you've performed the experiment yourself (and analyzed the data using proper statistical tools), or communed with your God personally, you can just shut up.  Personal experience is the only undeniable truth.  All else is faith.

Testlund:
I agree with that, but at the same time if something is very well explained, and makes sense in your head it might be hard to not believe in it. It may depend on the level of insight into things a person have how easy it is to convince him/her about something, and if that person is free to think critical or not. In many religious societies you're pretty much forbidden to think critical and you've been brain washed from birth that the only truth is what your parents or local priest have told you. The main purpouse of that is that someone wants power and control over people.
Also many are afraid to believe their is no god because the thought that their might be nothing after we die is too scary.
I believe in free thinking and not being bound to a group of believers, because they are usually guided by a psychopath.

Last night before I fell asleep a theory poped into my head. According to a book I've read that is called 'The Explanation' (translated from Swedish. I don't know the english name) every matter has a force striving for progress to become more complex, to evolve to become a greater being. And that is what the universe is doing. So I was thinking that after the Big Bang when everything was a mess it started to form into more complex structures. First all molecules just form into simple matter, but there is an energy force inside of everything striving for progress and wants to evolve. So that energy force then switches into the first simple organisms and then to more advanced beings. So according to the book the highest level that force can reach in the world that we can see is humans, cats, dogs and apes. The next stage is entering a spiritual state like a new dimension, but it continues to evolve after that and the end goal is to become God, or part of God. So I was thinking maybe there was no god in the beginning but he has been made by the life forces striving to become more advanced beings. So universe might be like a great organism (god) and everything in the universe is like the cells of that organism.
According what I've read about spirits and what they've said there is no beginning or end, there is only progress. Therefore there is no time either. The spirits themselves don't know if there is a god or not, only that there are different levels of progress.
Do I sound like I'm high on something now?

In any case I think the only way to solve the mysteries of the universe is if the creationists and darwinists can find some common ground and discuss with an open mind to each others beliefs. Maybe in the future we will reach a new level of understanding where a spirit world can be explained scientifically and even proved.

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