Misperceptions, Misperceptions
1. This is a predisposed bias. It is equal footing for both when it comes to reality vs. perception. Time will tell.
2. Exactly.
3. We sit and watch the sunset together. It looks the same to both of us.
Hey Wilderness. I truly admire your disciplined thinking and your ability to articulate your thoughts. You are among those who are most consistent about facts (things we believe because they can be measure) and skeptical about supposition (things we believe that can not be or have not yet been measured). I have often thought rational thinkers should make room for both.
The debates between believers and non-believers never end it seems. I venture to comment in this one because it is exceptional in both tone and tolerance. Arguments offered here about different thinking processes seem particularly valid and they may explain why both sides may be correct in the end. However, conventional concepts of reality have never been able to resolve this endless debate, but perhaps they soon will.
While unqualified as a philosopher, I suspect there is a flaw in your comparison of the two realities. Specifically, I disagree with your position the conclusions of an atheist are more in line with reality and the conclusions of a theist are “more in line with their perception of reality.” The implication seems to be the former is the real reality and the latter is somehow a distorted view. In this regard I do agree with Anton when he said, “As reality is always subject to perception, the second statement is true for both camps.” {1} However, a growing segment of the scientific community now believes the reality each human perceives is different and, more startling, each of those realities can be altered by observing them.
New notions are rapidly changing what is reality and they are challenging classical thinking about how it is measured. Take for example an article with the lengthy title A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it? {2}
Albert Einstein, never a fan of quantum mechanics, worked hard to prove it had shortcomings but he did not try to prove it was totally wrong. His interest is noted in this article, “More than the notion that god might play dice, what most bothered Einstein were quantum mechanics’ implications for reality. As Einstein prosaically inquired once of a walking companion, ‘Do you really believe that the moon exists only when you look at it?’” {2} How strange it is for me to consider Einstein’s question. In my egocentric childhood, I often had the feeling as I turned a corner that the streets and the people behind me ceased to exist.
Science may be on the verge of proving reality goes far beyond what humans can perceive it to be. For example, “In essence we do create the classical world we perceive, and as Brukner said, ‘There could be other classical worlds completely different from ours.’” {2} I wonder if one of those worlds will one day explain why so many humans have a spiritual nature.
Agnostics are in the center of the God v. No God debate and they may yet turn out to be the ones closest to the truth. “It could very well be that the distinction we make between information and reality is wrong. This is not saying that everything is just information. But it is saying that we need a new concept that encompasses or includes both.” {2}
I found this quick read thought provoking and very informative, Wilderness. I highly recommend it.
{1}http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/108160?page=2#post2302666
{2} http://seedmagazine.com/content/article … _tests/P1/
Threatened... lol
as if
I'm too busy trying to find something to respect them for.
- EmpressFelicityposted 11 years ago
0"if they believe in one god, they lack belief in all the other proposed gods. "
This does not make one an atheist minus one. At anyone time, a person believes something. Belief is a central, core fact of a human being. We act on beliefs much quicker than we act on knowledge. This is not surprising because we know so little. (using 'know' as in having experienced something) As most of us believe things without the actual experience, it is all belief.
In the god, no god question, none of us have experience with how the race came to be. None of us were there. We are all sifting through what we call evidence and we are all formulating what we believe.
One either believes that a sentience was involved in our coming to be, or one does not. If one does, the rest is definition. Once one has decided 'there is a god', one then sets about deciding what that god is like. All religion is (all religions) are efforts to describe that sentience.
Anyone who believes there is a god is a deist
Anyone who believes in the theory of that god is a theist
Anyone who believes there is no god is an atheist (shouldn't it be adeist?
The notion that theists are atheistic except for their own god is flawed. What they don't believe is other theories of god. They are firm in their belief that there is one.
cheers
- Deepes Mindposted 11 years ago0
- Deepes Mindposted 11 years ago0
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