Is there a way to tell when you are deluded?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Magical Realist, Dec 9, 2013.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    We can breathe, eat, walk, sleep, work etc. etc. for quite some time without paying much attention to it, so it seems we're having pure non-verbal, uncommented experiences of said activities.

    Of course, when illness, aging and dying strike, and the other not so fancy forces of living life, things can change.

    For example, if one gets pneumonia or malaria, or even just the common cold, the way one breathes makes a world of differences in how adversely affected one will be and feel by the disease. And to change one's breathing, requires quite a bit of thought and skill, definitions and practices.
    Or, we can usually walk just fine without giving it much thought - but wait till you stumble or have to move around with an injured leg. Suddenly what used to come so naturally, as such a given, becomes a matter of conscious decision-making and acting with precision.

    And the more one trains oneself in these things while one is still relatively well, the fewer troubles one will have later, when having to deal with aging, illness and death.
     
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  3. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Your approach reminds me of kindergarden kids who in a frenzy fit paint the walls with poo, and when a bewildered nurse catches them in the act and demands an explanation, they exclaim in chorus "Timmy started it!"

    It doesn't matter what theists or anyone else claims or whether they have evidence for it or not. What matters is that one has support for the claims one is making, whether they are positive or negative claims.

    But you seem to think that if theists don't present evidence of God to your liking, this absolves you from taking responsibility for how and what you reply to them.


    Timmy started it!
     
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  5. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    The idea that delusion is a bad thing is really ridiculous for the following reason. Reality is insane, soul crushing, evil and cruel. Therefore, magical thinking (another word for delusion) is perfectly justified, good, honorable and healthy. Pre-occupation with reality leads to insanity, hate, cruelty, evil, depression, suicide (particularly for atheists) and generally lack of fun. The idea that realism is a virtue is a stupidly misguided idea. All you have to do is read history (which is a bunch of dates and stories about violence, bloodshed, war and death) to realize that realty is something you should protect your mind against. Anyone who disagrees with my point is already deluded without even realizing it.

    So close this thread, pick up a book on magical thinking and go have fun.

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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Be serious. Do you really think that semantic sleight-of-hand is going to get you in the door of the academy?

    My assertion is a negative one. Only positive assertions require proof. You can't evade this rule with grammatical tricks.

    Of course, this does not mean that all negative assertions are true. Merely that the burden of proof falls on the one who made the positive assertion.

    Do you really believe that when Farmer Brown comes to the door of the academy and claims that there's a flying saucer in his back forty, and we ask him for the video he must surely have shot for his grandchildren, and he says, "Ah din't shoot no video, all twelve of mah fambly's cameras are busted, but that's okay, cuz now y'all got to prove that mah claim is FALSE," that he's not going to be tossed out on his butt?

    Once again, for the attention-deficient and the grammar magicians: That is a negative assertion. The burden of proof is on the person with the positive assertion.

    And once again, this does not mean that your assertion is false. It simply has not been proven true yet.

    I don't know if you're a theist but since you're acting as their spokesperson I'm treating you as such.

    Because life is so easy for theists, leaving everything up to God. You've got all day to harass us while we're busy doing the work that your descendants will credit to God.

    Once again, you proudly display your ignorance of science. Only positive claims need to be proven.

    Not evidence to my liking. Evidence that satsifies the scientific method. In other words, to the liking of the entire professional and academic community.

    Nice try, but it still won't get you past the academy gates.

    But you can probably get hired as a docent at the Creation Science Museum. They never heard of the scientific method in Kentucky.
     
  8. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    Thank you God for providing us with unwitting servants who do your will. God bless America!!!

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  9. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Only sometimes.
    One cannot rightfully say one disbelieves in a particular conception of "God," when one cannot even repeat it without copy-pasting it or looking it up in a dictionary.


    What I'm reacting to is the proposed supremacy of atheism when there appears to be no evidence of said supremacy.


    Aww. Whatever happened to "may the stronger one win"?


    I didn't say that all the atheists' questions would evaporate as pseudo-problems. I said:


    I don't espouse any particular theistic understanding.
    I'm interested in seeing what the vocal atheists have to offer - given that they tend to propose to know The Truth, the How Things Really Are. (Not to mention that not only a few deem themselves superior to me.)


    I don't need to imagine anything in this. I ask questions.


    Without cheating, list the first ten definitions from any of the three lists of names and titles of God that I have linked to.


    Indeed, they are the ones who should be definining it.


    No.

    Your approach here reduces God to being the kind of thing chairs and tables are.
    Your approach already excludes some of the basic definitions of "God," which is "Supreme Being, Creator and Controller of the Universe."
    So you're not working with a theistic definition of "God" to begin with.


    Enter virtue epistemology - on the part of the one asking the questions and desiring to know.


    But they are misguided questions, because they tactily assume that God, if God exists, is the kind of thing like a table or a chair.


    There you go again ...

    You strike me as someone who wishes to learn German, but insists on creating his own dictionary of German ...
     
  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Nonsense.
    That an adult can even make such a suggestion as you do here ...


    Once again, you proudly display your ignorance of decency.



    Oh Christ. I'm sick of boys in the bodies of grown men!
     
  11. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    That only positive assertions are tested? That's not my "suggestion." That's one of the cornerstones of the scientific method, which has been tested for half a millennium without ever coming close to being falsified. And all of the people who made it happen--Ockham, Pascal, Descartes, Laplace, Fermi, Einstein, etc... were all adults.

    How? By stating the obvious? You're sitting there, arguing on a science discussion website, and you proudly display the fact that you don't know doodley-squat about the scientific method!

    Have you even heard of Ockham's Razor or the Rule of Laplace? Can you identify three steps in the scientific method? Are you familiar with peer review, or the most common logical fallacies?

    Argument from authority is the fallacy that's in action here: Your daddy taught you that God exists so it must be true because your daddy was always right.

    Ockham, Pascal, Descartes, Laplace, Fermi, Einstein... Are these the "boys" you refer to? The ones whose work I'm citing as I (with diminishing patience) attempt to teach you how science and scholarship work in the real world, as opposed to the fantasy world of gods and angels and miracles?
     
  12. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    I wonder why gods and angels neglect you, but not us? I wonder what that means?

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    Does hellfire exist?
     
  13. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Boy, have you got some imagination! And rudeness too.


    In reference to the OP: No, sometimes, it is indeed impossible for some people to tell for themselves whether they are deluded or not.
     
  14. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    If you are equating exist with physical object, then you would appear to be more of a materialist than I am. If you want to equate exist with physical object, and deny that God is a physical object, then you would seem to be arguing that God doesn't exist. Welcome to atheism. (They may be a little pissed off at you for insulting them, but if you are nice, they will accept you.)

    "Supreme Being", "Creator" and "Controller of the Universe" are all ways of expressing the idea that God is more real than the universe and that the universe is dependent on God, instead of the other way around. That implies that theists believe not only that God exists, but that God's existence is independent of (not dependent on) what human beings believe about God. When theists talk about God, they think that they are talking about God, they aren't just talking about their own subjective concept of 'God', and hence about themselves.

    If you want to argue that theism has nothing to do with belief in the existence of God (and gods according to some definitions), then you would seem to be denying a major component of what the vast majority of theists seem to think theism is.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2013
  15. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    You have met or interacted with an angel?
     
  16. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    can you understand how all you talk about above is no basis for saying "god is an imagination"?

    :shrug:
     
  17. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    Lot's of people have.
     
  18. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    kx000, you can tell by Mazulu's delusion that he was answering your question...
    ... that he has not even given the OP in this Thread any consideration at all!

    Mazulu would seem to be proof that the truly delusional lack very much, if any, cognizance of reality. Which to me would seem to indicate that the answer to the question in the Title of this thread, would be : Not without help!

    Mazulu is here to PREACH - actually engaging in any rational or earnest discourse with mere humans seems to be beneath his evidently delusional stature as "An Ascended Being".

    kx000, you may as well just make up an answer by blindly striking keys on your keyboard - there is a good chance that that answer would appear to communicate more comprehension of the question you posed than anything Mazulu will Post.
     
  19. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    What happened?
     
  20. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    They went to heaven. Others came back and talked about their experience.
     
  21. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    What's your experience?
     
  22. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Eyes and ears only function in regards to the mind ... which in turn comes under the umbrella of ego ... w

    Iow all sensory activity is automatically contextualized by the self.
    I mean how can you hear something without the "you"?
     
  23. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Eyes and ears only function in regards to the mind ... which in turn comes under the umbrella of ego ... w

    Iow all sensory activity is automatically contextualized by the self.
    I mean how can you hear something without the "you"?
     

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