My meta-religious belief

[alias_sqbr]

This conversation about the definition of atheist got me thinking about exactly what I believe, and I was curious to know if anyone else has a similar POV, since afaict I differ from most atheists. I went into it a bit here but I feel like having another go at describing it. I've used a God-believer/atheist dichotomy here but it applies just as much to other forms of spiritual experience.

So, I think we all have flawed perceptions of the world, and the best we can do is talk to other people and try to reconcile all our POVs into a semi-consistent description and hope we're not too far off the truth. (Thus, science)

The way I perceive the world, it makes no sense, there's no higher power, etc. But the way other, equally intelligent and reasonable, people see the world there is some sort of higher meaning, some Thing they connect with when they pray etc. So I think the most plausible explanation is not they we are interpreting the equivalent inputs in different ways, but that we are working from different perceptions. Since there is no reason to think my perceptions are more accurate than anyone else's or vice versa, any explanation should take both POVs equally seriously.

This negates both of the usual explanations for the difference in perceptions between believers and non-believers. Atheists will say "Religious people are just unwilling to admit the truth to themselves". Religious people will say "Atheists are just denying the self-evident presence of God" etc.

I say: we're both somewhat delusional, and our perceptions do not accurately reflect the underlying reality. All we can say for certain is that any religious doctrine which says that everyone experiences God is wrong..which is most of them :) In general I reject any belief system which says that I'm delusional/sinful etc for not experiencing/"acknowledging" God/spiritiuality or implies that my perceptions are more flawed than religious people's (which cuts out every religious belief system I've encountered)

My personal theory (based on a mixture of Ockham's razor and the fact the only perceptions I feel really secure in are my own) is that there is nothing supernatural going on, but religious people are pattern matching in a different way which implies it is. This does imply I'm more factually correct than theists but I'm willing to admit their POV may be more useful in some contexts. My second choice is that there is something going on beyond the obvious and material, but noone understands it very well, though some people are able to make use of it via religion etc. My third choice is that one of the religions is right, but I don't like that one :)

So, do you all think I'm crazy? :)

Comments

[babalon-93.livejournal.com]

My second choice is that there is something going on beyond the obvious and material, but noone understands it very well, though some people are able to make use of it via religion etc.

That is about where I sit--though I would replace "noone" with "afaIct not many people", and then add to the end "and I am very happy making use of what I can from a variety of sources".

So in conclusion, no, I don't think you are crazy at all, and I am really liking these thinky posts of yours.

[alias_sqbr]

Mm, kind of 2.5 I guess: Some parts of some religions are correct if done properly.

I think in general we're all going to choose theories which make our personal experiences the most correct. While I can accept on an intellectual level that some people may have a deeper understanding of the spiritual than me, it's not very good for my ego so I tend to see it as a less appealing hypothesis :D

i believe in my culture. does that make sense?

[elaran.livejournal.com]

I like your first and second choices of personal theory. I'm more inclined towards the second even though I'm in my I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD phase. Not the third. Uh, the most [only?] religious-y related post I made is this one (http://elaran.livejournal.com/350067.html#cutid1).

I reject any belief system which says that I'm delusional/sinful etc for not experiencing/"acknowledging" God/spiritiuality or implies that my perceptions are more flawed than religious people's
I agree with this. Though, uh, I'm not so much for the rejecting*, just that I really disagree with that part.

* Damnit, I still have trouble admitting that I don't believe in God because it's so ingrained to do so. I dunno.

Re: i believe in my culture. does that make sense?

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Your gods are so much cooler than the New Testament God, too! They're all awesome and pewpewpew.

Re: i believe in my culture. does that make sense?

[alias_sqbr]

I can see how it would be complicated if your cultural/religious background is different from the default: it's very easy for me to be an atheist while still engaging with the many parts of christianity I like, since Australia is so christian. I know my atheist-jewish grandma has a complicated relationship with jewishness (and still never eats ham).

Mm, rejecting is a strong word. But certainly I'm never going to convert to such a religion (which is a useful argument against most door knockers etc)

I had the advantage that my grandparents are all atheists, so it's hardly going against a long family tradition.

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

Perceptually different because you are working with genuinely different sets of sense-datum, or perceptually different because you are using the same data differently?

[alias_sqbr]

Well, I think our actual senses (sight/sound etc) are probably getting equivalent data, but that there's something different going on at an unconscious level beyond our control(*) (where our brain decides what it important enough to bring to the attention of the conscious mind)

Similar to the way that say someone with depression might tend to interpret everything in a negative light (even if they try to interpret things differently). Which sounds like I'm saying religious people are mentally ill, but given that atheists are in the minority it makes more sense to say we are(**), and anyway just because people with depression may not function very well by conventional standards doesn't mean they're wrong.

(*)Or at least, largely beyond our control.
(**)A very unpopular atheist opinion :D

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you?

[stableglynn.livejournal.com]

It's an annoying fact that if you want to take as a given that people are often wrong about their personal experiences you have to be aware that this applies to you too. It annoys me anyway. ;) (I really appreciated your "thus science" btw.)

But.

I don't like your belief system. It's logical, it's consistent and it's not hypocritical (it's certainly not crazy), but still... I think you're right that we process patterns differently to believers, but only in terms about where we ascribe consciousness and action by others. In other words, we see the same patterns, just set the bar for what is "random" differently. I find that my school statistics lessons help here. I suppose we will experience some things differently because the non-theists (the Brights! tee hee) are less likely to experience religious rapture and such like, but in the main... when something goes right for a religious person they say "thanks" to something, when the same thing goes right for me I say "oh that's nice", but I don't assume it was anything other than the same world that was mean to me last week.

My main objection to number 2 is that there isn't (as I see it) any middle ground. Reducing the argument to "is there some spiritual force beyond our ken or not" and ignoring the specifics, if your "we're both wrong" is correct then we're not both wrong, the spiritual-force argument wins, because there is therefore something beyond our ken, even if they were all wrong about the specifics of it.

Does that make sense?

Re: It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you?

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, Glynn again, can't be bothered to sign in at work. ;) Just found this interesting tidbit that supports point number 1:
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/10/feeling_out_of_contr.html

It's near the bottom of the post.

Re: It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you?

[alias_sqbr]

It's an annoying fact that if you want to take as a given that people are often wrong about their personal experiences you have to be aware that this applies to you too. It annoys me anyway

Oh, me too :D

I'm not sure all religious people see the world the way you describe. A lot certainly do, though, and that link you gave was very interesting. Stuff like that is why I'm very much a skeptic and, deep down, smugly atheist :)

Reducing the argument to "is there some spiritual force beyond our ken or not" and ignoring the specifics, if your "we're both wrong" is correct then we're not both wrong, the spiritual-force argument wins, because there is therefore something beyond our ken, even if they were all wrong about the specifics of it.

If you express it that way, yes, but 99% of non-atheists don't see it that way, and would be even more upset than us by that outcome. If God doesn't exist but ...*random example* some people can tap into the global consciousness, that doesn't change the fact that God doesn't exist. Having one over the atheists really wouldn't come into it. Even people with fairly vague beliefs tend to have certain specific things they think they understand. About the only people who'd really be right would be the agnostics (and they're always "right" :D) and the incredibly vague "I just think there's something out there" people(*). I see atheism as being like quantum mechanics: it's one thing for people to say "I think quantum mechanics is wrong" and another for them to say "Here is my unified theory of everything which disproves quantum mechanics". The first group is (imo) quite possibly right but not very useful, but the second group is almost certainly wrong, and doesn't get to be smug when an improved version of quantum mechanics comes along if it bears no resemblance to their TOE.

Also, I think a middle ground (ish) would be if certain things that people tend to see as either having a supernatural explanation or not being real turned out to have a scientific basis, like scent-based telepathy or something.

But yes, there's a reason that's my second choice :) And I can see how it could be too annoying to even consider, and this is very much just my opinion.

(*)I'm ignoring all the people who believe "There's something out there...and it cares about us/me"

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

So would you say that you are a realist atheist (you think that, if there are such things as religious experiences/beings/etc., then they are things that are external, out there in the real world, and that there are no such things in the external world), or are you an anti-realist atheist(you do not think religious things are the kinds of things that are out there in the world, and you do not think that such non-worldly things exist)?

[stableglynn.livejournal.com]

Um... what? i'm confused, but I think what you are asking is:
Do I think that the things I don't believe in, if they did exist, would be a part of "our" reality or external to it?

In which case, my answer is "either", I think of the two unlikely things an external spiritual force is the least unlikely (most likely) since I'd expect a built-in spiritual thing to be easier to spot, but I really don't care.

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

No no. I mean realist or anti-realist. Unless, by "our reality" you mean something like "something entirely mind-dependent."

Take, for example, the issue of whether or not you can "feel" god in your everyday life. For a realist theist, this may be very important, because it gives them tangible confirmation of a tangibly confirmable thing. But if they're an anti-realist theist, it doesn't matter whether you can feel god or not, because god is not going to be the kind of thing that's going to be a concept primitively available to your experience.

A mirror debate in science might be the difference between believing that there are actually electrons actually out there actually doing things, or if you believe that there are actually electrons that are useful conceptual models for some kind of thing that actually happens. In both of them you believe that electrons are true, but only one of them believes that electrons are real. And depending on which model you adopt, it'll shape the evidence and proofs that you're looking for. You might think, for instance, that there are no electrons because there are no actual things that match the use of the term. Or you might think that there are no electrons because the concept is not useful, or because there is no reason to suppose the concept matches well with other things.

Religion looks a bit like anti-realists would also have to be atheists. But I think that Kierkegaard, for instance, could be described as an anti-realist theist. So it makes things more complicated if you're an atheist on the basis that god is not available to you on the basis of god being an actual, real thing. Which seems to be what Sophie is leaning towards.

[alias_sqbr]

It's like, I think there are real things which are usefully modeled by electrons, but do not 100% match with the model of electrons, and people who think that there are literally little balls rotating around the nucleus of an atom are wrong, but not totally 100% off.

Similarly, I think there may be a real thing which people model in their heads as "God", but that model, while useful and sometimes accurate, is wrong in significant ways.

I'm not sure if that makes me realist or non-realist :)

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

I think it would make you a realist

[alias_sqbr]

Personally, since I don't think they exist anyway, I have no strong feelings one way or another. I guess I'm more agnostic-than-atheist on the first sort though, since "There are weird things science can't explain yet but will later" is imo a fairly reasonable POV.

[distantcam.livejournal.com]

I suppose I fall into the first category. My personal theory is that I have never encountered or heard of someone else encountering something that had a plausible scientific explanation behind it.

I suppose where I differ from people of faith is that when I experience something I'll reach for the scientific explanation first whereas the faithful will reach for the supernatural explanation. Some see Jesus in a cloud whereas I see a pattern my brain has decided to see as a face because the brain is a pattern matching machine. I'm not saying their explanation is wrong, because both are equally valid, and in alot of cases both hypotheses are equally unprovable.

The way I like to put it is that I have faith in science. But I am willing to have my faith challenged. And so far, nothing has changed that.

[alias_sqbr]

Have a look at the link stableglynn posted above which does back up your opinion.

I'm not sure that's all there is to religious belief though. But I'm not willing to stand by that statement with much vigor, since it's based on religious people's explanations rather than personal experience :)

[yalovetz]

My perspective on this: I am an atheist who did a theology degree and who went on a trip to the holy land with some very religious people (including monks and priests). At the end of each day of visiting religious sites we all sat round and talked about what we'd felt and what the day's sites had meant to us.

I found that a lot of the time we were basically talking about the same thing, but using different words. Where I would talk about finding an experience awe-inspiring, or overwhelming, or moving, they would talk about finding it deeply spiritual. I think we had the same experiences and feelings, but interpreted them differently depending on our religious beliefs or lack of them.

I think my science fictional sensawunda is someone else's spirituality.

[alias_sqbr]

To a large extent, yes I agree. But I think there is a subtle distinction: my mother, for example, was brought up to see the world through atheist eyes and it never quite worked, and it was only when she became religious that it properly made sense. *realises I probably should have added this to the post, oops*