Do you respect the views of the religious?

CerebralCortex

Jakkass wrote: »

I think that Tom Cruise and John Travolta have a right to believe in Scientology, but I believe Scientology to be mistaken. I can express this view without mocking it.

Mocking people isn't the best way to encourage another way of thinking, infact it repels people from it and rightly so.

Ya but do you actually respect Tom Cruise and John Travolta's beliefs in Scientology?

philologos

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Ya but do you actually respect Tom Cruise and John Travolta's beliefs in Scientology?

I'm not sure if you can respect something which is false. Perhaps if different religions put forward positive morality you can respect the morality that results from it or the net benefit of society I guess.

I don't know much about Scientology to be able to judge that belief system in particular.

philologos

pH wrote: »

Fine, I can understand a laisser faire mindset, but would you agree that missionary work, with the aim of converting people to a new religion, no matter how gentle or well meaning it is, is actually highly disrespectful of the indigenous beliefs?

Only if you believe that your belief system is feeble and should be shielded from debate, and from alternatives.

I don't consider it disrespectful to Christianity to encourage debate. Why? Simply put, I think Christianity will survive irrespective of how many different options there will be.

midlandsmissus

Wicknight wrote: »

By being human. Our brains are basically massive pattern matching systems.

I often wake up and can see people lying on my floor. I'm not dreaming, I'm wide awake. But there are people moving around on the floor. I switch on my light and there are none, unsurprisingly.

What is happening, as far as I can work out, is that my brain is working just of the fresh information of the dark floor because I just woke up. It has no context to put the dark floor into, and so it goes into default mode of pattern matching for humans.

Just to clarify, when I wake up it is not that I'm seeing fuzzy shapes on the floor that I think might be people. I see people. I see people as clear as if there was actually someone lying on my floor in the dark. Some times they are even moving. I can make out faces and hands and legs and clothes. They are dark and shadowy obviously, but they could not be any clearer than if it were actuallying lying on my floor. It is not a waking dream, I'm fully awake, I just haven't turned on the light yet so my brain is having trouble working out what it is actually seeing, and so defaults to pattern matching. One of these days I'm going to wake up to find someone robbing my house and just roll over back to sleep thinking I'm imagining it.

People forget that the image that we "see" in our brain is a processed image It is not the raw data from our eyes. Our brain has put the image through an awful lot of post-processing in order for us to understand it. And sometimes, given lack of data or context, this processing makes a balls of it, and we see things that are not accurate or real.

Just to point out - you were waking up from sleep.
I had yet to go to sleep.

Zillah

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Just to point out - you were waking up from sleep.
I had yet to go to sleep.

You never responded to my earlier point. Do you not find it strange that only people who have been told about Jesus ever see Jesus?

midlandsmissus

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The word Jesus was already in your mind from your younger days. One of the reasons I cant give this kind of claim any respect is the people who see them always know what they are looking at because they know of the thing they have seen before hand. You dont know how much of that glowing face wasn't just the chance reflection of a light and how much of it was your mind just filling in the blacks with the most magical face your know. Ever notice how no-one has ever claimed to have had a vision which they just knew at the time was Jesus, even though there was no way for them to have ever heard of Jesus or Christianity at all? All the elements of your vision were already in your head, all you needed was a tired brain and some light to join the dots into an imaginary picture.
Another reason I cant respect these kind of beliefs is that for every one of you (a christian having a vision of Jesus) there is a jew or muslim etc having the same vision but seeing the face of muhammed or noah or something. And you all will most likely apply my own reasons above for disbelieving your vision to disbelieving each others, but you wont apply it to your own experience.

'A christian having a vision of Jesus'

Nope. I wasn't a Christian, and I wasn't part of Christian dominated Ireland. My whole family were atheists. It was never talked about at home, I never did religion all the way through school, and I never went to mass.

I would have known a bit about Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed etc from popular culture and the media, but that is as far as my knowledge would have been.

And what I saw didn't look like any image I had seen anyway,but I knew it was him.

Sam Vimes

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Just to point out - you were waking up from sleep.
I had yet to go to sleep.

Tiredness is not the only thing that can cause modeling errors and false positives in image processing, it's just the most common cause

midlandsmissus

Zillah wrote: »

Yeah, you're right, the creator of the universe sending you a personalised message is way more reasonable than a human brain (an organ that is known to cause hallucinations for hundreds of different reasons) giving you a hallucination.



As much as, really? Were you by any chance born in Nepal or Saudi Arabia? Or, dare I hazzard a guess, Christian dominated Ireland?

No I was born in Atheist England,and we continued our ways when we got to Ireland.Christian Ireland had absolutely no effect on me, as I wasn't involved in any aspect of it.

So yes, I would have heard of Jesus,Mohammed,Buddha etc. in equal ammounts, on the television, through media, a little bit of all of them.

Turtwig

midlandsmissus wrote: »

No I was born in Atheist England,and we continued our ways when we got to Ireland.Christian Ireland had absolutely no effect on me, as I wasn't involved in any aspect of it.

So yes, I would have heard of Jesus,Mohammed,Buddha etc. in equal ammounts, on the television, through media, a little bit of all of them.

So just curious what are you then? Atheist, Theist, Atheist Agnostic??
Or do you prefer to avoid any label?

midlandsmissus

vibe666 wrote: »

i think (or at least i hope) i speak for all the atheists here when I say that if a hallucination of a floating disembodied head of some hippy was enough to pry you away from atheism in the middle of the night, you weren't a proper atheist in the first place and we'd have probably excommunicated you from the order if you hadn't already left. :pac::pac::pac:

Wait until you see something

Atheism isn't concrete. People can change.

Sam Vimes

midlandsmissus wrote: »

'A christian having a vision of Jesus'

Nope. I wasn't a Christian, and I wasn't part of Christian dominated Ireland. My whole family were atheists. It was never talked about at home, I never did religion all the way through school, and I never went to mass.

The point is that no one ever heard of Jesus for the first time through a vision. The word and concept always existed in their minds previously. Seeing a gold face and having a name that you already know pop into your head is no more significant than seeing pink elephants. It's your mind trying to make sense of what it thinks it's seeing

Come to think of it the face you describe closely matches the image of Moses from south park

Sam Vimes

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Wait until you see something

Atheism isn't concrete. People can change.

Seeing something like that would not erase the knowledge that the human mind is extremely susceptible to hallucination. Now if he left me with the meaning of life or something tangible that I couldn't possibly have got anywhere else, say something that hasn't been invented yet, that might just change my mind

midlandsmissus

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Because the human mind has an ability to model, a tendency to hallucinate and a propencity to see what it wants to see

You don't have to be insane or on drugs to see something that isn't there, especially when you're in your bedroom and you don't think you're tired. It happens all the time

Just looking up a few stats there, and it says that sleep related hallucinations only occur during sleep deprivation, when the individual has been deprived of sleep for x amount of days (differs from person to person).

I was not sleep deprived at that time.

midlandsmissus

Zillah wrote: »

You never responded to my earlier point. Do you not find it strange that only people who have been told about Jesus ever see Jesus?

I did answer.

Sam Vimes

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Just looking up a few stats there, and it says that sleep related hallucinations only occur during sleep deprivation, when the individual has been deprived of sleep for x amount of days (differs from person to person).

I was not sleep deprived at that time.

I've had them when I wasn't sleep deprived and sleep isn't the only thing that causes hallucinations. Honestly, which seems more likely to you, that a known and very common glitch in human image processing and modeling happened to you or that the son of the creator of the universe appeared as a gold face and implanted his name in your head?

Turtwig

Also, isn't it possible that because millions of people worship Jesus there is a possibility of having the name etched in some sort of Genetic Memory??
Just a theory....
Or the fact people swear J's name a lot :P
Honestly, I'm pretty sure there's a rational explanation for it

Sam Vimes

Here's a rough quote from someone I can't remember: I will accept a claim of a miracle when the possibility of the claimant being wrong or lying is more miraculous than the claim being made

This does not meet that criteria because your experience can easily be explained by other means

Turtwig

Off topic, but I love the quote, (just Hope I say it right)

Of course Miracles occur if you care to call those spasmodic radiances of lights miracles

Zillah

Malty_T wrote: »

Also, isn't it possible that because millions of people worship Jesus there is a possibility of having the name etched in some sort of Genetic Memory??
Just a theory....

No way in hell. It is hypothetically possible (though very unlikely I'd imagine) but it would take a hell of a lot longer than a couple thousand years.

Turtwig

Zillah wrote: »

No way in hell. It is hypothetically possible (though very unlikely I'd imagine) but it would take a hell of a lot longer than a couple thousand years.

Dang:( Ok's how bout em s/he heard it when s/he was too young to properly remember?

ChocolateSauce

Malty_T wrote: »

Also, isn't it possible that because millions of people worship Jesus there is a possibility of having the name etched in some sort of Genetic Memory??
Just a theory....
Or the fact people swear J's name a lot :P
Honestly, I'm pretty sure there's a rational explanation for it

I swear Jesus's name all the time, but this is purely because I was raised in a country with Christian roots. If I'd been raised in another culture with a different religion, I'd be swearing on that. Also, genetic memory? Nope.

vibe666

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Just looking up a few stats there, and it says that sleep related hallucinations only occur during sleep deprivation, when the individual has been deprived of sleep for x amount of days (differs from person to person).

not sure where you read that, but it's totally incorrect. i have only been genuinely sleep deprived once in my life and I did not have any hallucinations at all at that time.

i do however have hallucinations every couple of months or so now, and thanks to the missus 'loving her bed' as she calls it and not sleeping properly if i'm not there, i get very regular sleep, actually too much if anything.

it's been happening for as long as i can remmeber, in different houses, in different climates, in different countries, with different people (or alone) so it's not environmental either.

you saw what you wanted to see. maybe not consciously, but your brain filled in a need for it and you lapped it up. i honestly don't see how as a steadfast atheist you could be swayed by a vision in the night.

personally, if jesus christ appeared to me out of thin air, in person, flesh and blood, in broad daylight i would spend all the time i had questioning his legitimacy every way i could to discount any other possibility. i'd want to be seeing solid miracles and getting dna samples and even then he'd have to work damn hard to convince me it wasn't a hoax.

sorry, but you were NOT an atheist, despite what you claim.

philologos

vibe666 wrote: »

personally, if jesus christ appeared to me out of thin air, in person, flesh and blood, in broad daylight i would spend all the time i had questioning his legitimacy every way i could to discount any other possibility. i'd want to be seeing solid miracles and getting dna samples and even then he'd have to work damn hard to convince me it wasn't a hoax.

sorry, but you were NOT an atheist, despite what you claim.

That sounds like you genuinely wouldn't want it to be true. You would be so desperate to refute any notion that went against your hypothesis concerning Jesus Christ.

Why don't you ever exert the same scepticism about your current position? Maybe the Christians could be right? What makes you so sure that faith is delusional?

As for wanting to see miracles, that's a little bit Pharasaic. You somehow think that you are deserving of having God perform miracles before you, and that He should do everything you want just because you say so. Sounds rather arrogant to me.

Anyhow, this doesn't prove that midlandsmissus wasn't an atheist, just that she had a conversion moment. I.E that the secular worldview made no sense to her in light of her religious experience. Indeed, the secular worldview makes very little sense to me in light of my relationship with God. Although I have to say, I've never had any form or vision of Jesus Christ at all. A lot of converts from Islamic / Hindu / Buddhist countries do.

Interesting thread all, although some of the posts took me back quite a bit :pac:

Dades

Jakkass wrote: »

Sounds rather arrogant to me.

Jeez can we go one thread without someone labelling someone else arrogant.

Dave!

Dades wrote: »

Jeez can we go one thread without someone labelling someone else arrogant.

Typical arrogant atheist thing to say ! Are you Dawkins in disguise? :mad:

Dades

Only because my Emma Watson disguise was rumbled!

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

Only because my Emma Watson disguise was rumbled!

So you're saying the hot chick wont be at the next beers?
Booo.....

//methinks the word arrogant should be added to Goodwin's law.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

That sounds like you genuinely wouldn't want it to be true. You would be so desperate to refute any notion that went against your hypothesis concerning Jesus Christ.

Whether we want it to be true or not is irrelevant. The point is that it's extremely unlikely to be true. You say "You somehow think that you are deserving of having God perform miracles before you, and that He should do everything you want just because you say so. Sounds rather arrogant to me" but the whole point is we don't expect that and if it appeared to be happening there would almost certainly be another explanation, so we would look for it

vibe666

Jakkass wrote: »

As for wanting to see miracles, that's a little bit Pharasaic. You somehow think that you are deserving of having God perform miracles before you, and that He should do everything you want just because you say so. Sounds rather arrogant to me.

living up to your username again. :rolleyes:

I'll keep it as simple as I can. your god does not exist, therefore i have no want or need of a non-existent entity to do anything for me, since he isn't there.

the funny thing is, you DO believe in this all powerful non-existent entity, yet you feel the need to jump to his non-existent defence every time someone questions him. is your faith getting a little shaky there? :rolleyes:

what I meant was, 'if' someone claiming to be Jesus or god or elvis, or whatever appeared in front of me, I'd need some pretty damn convincing proof that he was who he said he was because i'd have to be completely out of my tree to just take his word for it without looking for some kind of evidence (which is kinda the whole point of atheism, believing what you can prove) now wouldn't I?

oh, sorry. definitely barking up the wrong tree there. fruitcake anyone? :rolleyes:

kiffer

midlandsmissus wrote: »

How was I 'predisposed to read non-existent religious connotations into visions', I was an athiest, from an atheist family.

um... I might be wrong and I might be confusing two people but didn't midlandmissus talk in another thread about being annoyed at her atheist mother for not letting her make her confirmation with the rest of the class?
That doesn't sound like some one with no real exposure to Christianity, not that any one could avoid Christian imagery in Ireland...

Hmmm In fact I'd better search a bit to make sure I'm not confusing midlandmissus with sukikettle or someone...

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Hiya I'd say I wanted to be catholic as a child, purely during my primary school years. And yes it would have been totally just to fit in. For the social aspect. It's not like i actually understood what they were on about (and im sure most of the other kids hadnt a clue what it was about either, it was purely a social thing, and the excitement of communion and confirmation.)

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I never ever got bullied by other kids about it, but I still definitely felt really left out at times. I was the only one in my class at primary school who didnt have communion or confirmation, and that was awful!
I remember saying to my mum once, 'I know you dont believe in it, but you should have made me catholic anyway if I'm in a place where every other person is catholic'.

You were in a choir, you mentioned arguing with priests... if you argue with people you will be exposed to their ideas... unless you are so bloody minded that you never stop to listen to what you are rebutting you will pick up details of what they believe even if it is just so you can come up with a better comeback later.
I've only had a few little hallucinations; a face (maybe Jesus? why not Odin, Tyr or Dagda?) in a tree's branches, a giant fox the size of a horse, jumbles of objects appearing briefly to be people or animals... and this has been while wide awake, during the day and not sleep deprived.
Whilst sleep deprived I've seen; movement of objects that wasn't real, believed (repeatedly) that a jellybean machine was a person (I'd strung together a few all-nighters at this point), various audio hallucinations, banging, knocking, explosions, music, screaming, doorbells and probably more, sleep dep also messes up your memory a bit.
I've also suffered from sleep paralysis mostly as a child but a few times while an adult... *shudder*...


tl;dr? Minor hallucinations are common, the spin we put on them depends on the individual and recent events in ones life. Generally believers put them into the context of their religion, non-believers put them in to what ever context they feel makes sense at the the time; aliens, Jesus or what ever fits the bill (or "oh crap another hallucination")