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From: abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: what does it mean to talk to God [a brief attempt at an answer]
Message-ID: <338@mhuxm.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Mar-85 14:31:26 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxm.338
Posted: Sun Mar 10 14:31:26 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Mar-85 04:41:12 EST
References: <893@topaz.ARPA>, <2635@mcnc.UUCP> <4947@cbscc.UUCP>
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Xref: watmath net.religion:5934 net.religion.christian:395

> >In article <893@topaz.ARPA> hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) writes:
> >> ...if I claim that God is sending me messages on 100 MHz with frequency
> >>modulation, it is very easy to verify whether this is true or not.  When I
> >>claim that he is sending me messages through the events around me, it is
> >>very hard to prove this true or false.  Someone else can look around and see
> >>no message there.  According to certain philosophers of science, in the
> >>final analysis this means that my claim is meaningless.
> >
> >[Byron Howes:]
> >More problematic is the situation where someone else looks around and sees
> >a *different* message there.  Now we have counterclaims of truth, each with
> >the same degree (or lack thereof) of falsifiability.  This is the question
> >which generates the continuing heat in this newsgroup.  As I have been
> >asked on any number of occasions, how is it possible to determine what is
> >correct?  

Clearly, such messages are below the threshold of detectability, in
a signal-to-noise kind of way.  People are required to make decisions
in their lives, and unfortunately cannot wait around to "signal average"
for a thousand or so years before acting.  Religion really addresses
those human problems which are inaccessible to rational inquiry within
a reasonable length of time.  As the methods of rational inquiry, as it
were, are enlarged, there will obviously be developed certain areas in which
religion is not the only authority giving such "messages."  It is not
inconceivable to me that some religions may one day be considered spurious
as a result.

This point of view has no logical relationship to either a belief or
disbelief in any particular religion.  If a given set of beliefs (and
this is my ultimate reduction of the definition of what constitutes
a religion--though I also would like to exclude "cults" from being
considered as such) is shown to be inconsistent with reality, and that
proof is accepted, then that would just about prove that the origins
of that religion were falsely perpetrated upon innocent followers.

(This makes it imperative that all religions adjust to modernity:  they
run a serious risk of being considered outmoded.  Hence, many religious
authorities today do not consider evolution to be in conflict with
the story of creation in Genesis--a new interpretation is developed
to the extent that before the world was created, the meaning of the
word "day" was unclear and could constitute centuries or more.)

HOWEVER, I would like to shift the emphasis from the religions
themselves, which cannot be verified or disproven (that's why we
call them beliefs, natch!) to the followers or rejectors of those
religions, including all of us reading the net.  In other words,
the psychology of religion is my topic today:

Since as mentioned above people need to make life decisions without
all the facts, there arises an allegiance to those decisions because
psychologically (Abeles' 1st principle of psychology; forget about
some of what you may have been taught) man's greatest psychological
need is the need to be right.  It's that simple, folks.  If you're
a fundamentalist Ubizmatist, and if you just got finished spending
fifty years of your life living your life like a good Ubizmatist,
it would just about send you to the loony bin to look honestly
at the claims of other beliefs because you are going to be afraid,
and I mean AFRAID, to find out that you have been wasting your time
swinging dead chickens around over your head every Tuesday afternoon
(a requirement of Ubizmatic mystical beliefs).  It's MORE than
EMBARRASSING!

Similarly for atheists.  If you are a dyed-in-the-wool atheist and
you are getting old and find out that atheism is a drag 'cause it
kind of says that there is no particular reason to live, it is a
bit embarrassing to proclaim to the world that Ubizmatology is the
one true religion.

Actually agnostics have it the best; they can slowly move in the
direction they feel most comfortable with, without making a big
deal about it and staking their sense of self as strongly on this
issue of religion.  But ultimately, they have the same problem.

Point is, I don't really take the things people say about their
religious thinking too seriously because to a great extent they
are only claiming those beliefs to be facts because their egos
can't take the heat.  The ego is the part of the mind, according
to S. Freud, which deals with reality, and the fact of the matter
is that there aren't enough facts available on which to base
life decisions--thus potentially overloading the ego.  So sometimes
it compensates by spewing out nonsense.

Again, this bears no relationship to the validity of the general
concept of religion or validity of any particular manifestation.

--J. Abeles