Atheist or Not?

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twoshots
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05 Feb 2009, 12:26 am

"Evolutionary psychology" of course being jargon for "just-so stories".

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blackelk
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05 Feb 2009, 12:40 am

twoshots wrote:

"Evolutionary psychology" of course being jargon for "just-so stories".

How can evolutionary psychology be proven? It is obvious that personality, emotions, etc.. are products of evolution. How does one prove this? Psychology does not have to bow to your dogmatic, authoritarian standards of what the subject is.

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Awesomelyglorious
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05 Feb 2009, 1:01 am

blackelk wrote:

My point is that they have both taken their lumps. They have both been famously wrong. I don't even like Skinner. I think he was a dangerous man. I can still respect his brilliance. I do like Freud. Freud was the first evolutionary psychologist. How could Freud prove the unconscious in his day? Skinner said that consciouness didnt even exist because there was no proof it. Brain imaging eventually proved him wrong, and Freud right. For 60 years the idea of "consciouness" was erased from psychology. It was unscientific and didnt exist. Only within the last 20 or so has it come back. Not all psychic phenomenon can be reduced to the scientific method. It would be stupid to disregard them totally just because of this.

Wasn't Skinner's stance methodological more than ontological?

Not only that, but isn't the acceptance of the validity of the consciousness probably more related to the cognitivist school which used conscious concepts but still upheld an attitude considered more scientific for the time?

In any case, the finding of the unconsciousness really isn't a great victory amidst all of the other failings that could be attributed to Freudian psychoanalysis, as most of the other concepts are not widely accepted.

Ok, and for dealing with phenomenal realities, we can move on to phenomenology, and related concepts, but I do not think that Freudian psychoanalysis seems the more effective method for addressing human realities.

Orwell
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05 Feb 2009, 1:26 am

Hector wrote:

I'm careful of course to say psychology as a science. I'm aware that people still read Freud and Jung, the former still being one of the ten most cited sources in academia.

Psychology simply is not a science, and generally speaking intelligent people do not study it. An intelligent person interested in such matters will generally go for neurobiology instead in order to study real science.

I've yet to meet a bright psychology major, and this includes a number of master's students I've dealt with, as well as several people who have already earned their master's degrees. Every psych major I have ever met is a complete and utter dolt. (Exception for one reasonably intelligent PhD)

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blackelk
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05 Feb 2009, 2:32 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

blackelk wrote:

Yes it was the cognitive revolution that majorly lead to this new path back towards the unconscious. But Freud was there first. The fact is that Freud's theories on the unconscious and repression could not be proved with the technology of the time. Context is needed.

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blackelk
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05 Feb 2009, 2:34 am

Orwell wrote:

Hector wrote:

I'm careful of course to say psychology as a science. I'm aware that people still read Freud and Jung, the former still being one of the ten most cited sources in academia.

It can't a true hard science and doesn't claim to be.

Your anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. I find most college students to be not so bright. Whether they be English majors or engineers. That doesn't prove anything.

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slowmutant
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05 Feb 2009, 6:29 am

ruveyn wrote:

Orwell wrote:

My faith is a personal thing, and my reasons for accepting Christ are unlikely to be convincing to anyone else.

Sorry I can't give you a better response. If you wanted a reason why my particular form of Christianity is the right one, I can give you arguments for that. But those who are unwilling to make the initial jump to theism are typically not going to be impressed by anything I will tell them.

Don't apologize. You do not owe anyone an explanation for what you believe or don't believe. You have your religion in the right place: up close and personal. Religion should be a private matter, not something institutionalized with public import.

ruveyn

I tend to agree, which is why I'll never be one of those gosh-diddly-arned evangelicals.

Awesomelyglorious
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05 Feb 2009, 9:59 am

blackelk wrote:

Being somewhere first is not necessarily an impressive accomplishment. I mean Democritus thought of the idea of an atom first, but this is often considered just an impressive feat of luck rather than one of brilliant methodology. Certainly I would not say "Democritus was there first. The fact is that Democritus's theories on atoms could not be proved with the technology of the time. Context is needed.", as after all, Democritus by some accounts was completely lucky rather than having advanced knowledge about physical phenomena. Heck, in any case, the "unconscious mind" was a concept before Freud came on the scene, so it isn't as if he is a first discoverer, he just took a pre-existing idea and focused upon it.

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05 Feb 2009, 10:57 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

blackelk wrote:

But Democritus was the only only one how could explain with his theory of atoms you can "cut" through water or air without resulting in a visible cut or why ice melts into water and water disappears as vapour. So his conclusion that matter is composed of tiny particles was quite logic.

Awesomelyglorious
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05 Feb 2009, 2:54 pm

Dussel wrote:

Well, the issue isn't just logic, but also sufficient logic. If the ancient atomists didn't have enough evidence to come to a conclusive argument as to atoms versus a number of other conceptions, then they could easily be argued to just have had some luck, which is what some philosophers such as Bertrand Russel attribute the success of the atomists to.

ruveyn
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05 Feb 2009, 3:11 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Dussel wrote:

Given the evidence and technology available during the time of the pre-Socratics it was luck. But the underlying intuition turned out to be right in the long run. Demokritos and Lukipus had the right instincts.

ruveyn

Awesomelyglorious
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05 Feb 2009, 3:33 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Yes, but good instincts do not make a good methodology, and a bad methodology although sometimes beneficial to progress, cannot be given credit for all of the "discoveries" made by it.

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05 Feb 2009, 4:07 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Yes, but good instincts do not make a good methodology, and a bad methodology although sometimes beneficial to progress, cannot be given credit for all of the "discoveries" made by it.

There was more behind this - they asked the right questions like: "When I cut with a knife through a piece of cheese I will see a cut, if I cut through water why there is not visible cut?" "Why water or bronze is sometime liquid and sometime solid?" "Why when I put salt in water it solves and how it get back when I boil the water down?"

JoJerome
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05 Feb 2009, 5:22 pm

Long story short, I decided one day to do unto others as I would have others do unto me ... measure my beliefs by the same standards I measure other people's:

- "Why do I believe that Zeus and Vishnu and the Rainbow Serpent of Australia are myths and why do/did people believe them as literally real?"

- Answer: "They are myths because there is zero empirical evidence that they exist and mountains of empirical evidence that they are man-made superstitions. People do/did believe them because that's how they were raised. They didn't know any better/and or were pressured by law or by social norms not to question their beliefs."

- Doing unto myself what I just did unto others, by those standards I too am placing literal belief in a man-made myth, for no other reason than that's what I've been taught and social norms discourage me from questioning it.

- By my own standards, these are not good reasons to believe in something. In fact, the whole don't-question-it thing is even further evidence that the thing is not real (because it can't stand up to scrutiny).

- Thereby, risking alienation from friends family and society, I chose to follow my beliefs ... not the beliefs other people told me to follow.

TheUnnamedOne
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07 Feb 2009, 8:58 pm

Emor wrote:

Most of the people I know who have Aspergers are Atheists, and I just wanted to see if that was just a coincidence or if most are.
However, the only person I know definitely has it and I know offline is Catholic(however, I personally think he's Agnostic), but that's sort of bound to happen when I go to a Catholic school.
Also, I'm Atheist but my parents insist I'm Catholic.
Also, the reason I'm not asking for other religions is because I honestly think if you follow a religion it's down to what your parents have taught you to believe, not because you chose it or anything...(I know, very controversial).
EMZ=]

Yeah! I HATE when parents force their religion on kids. My classmate said she's "Catholic, but not religious" (seriously) which basically means "My parents taught/force me to be Catholic, but I don't like to go to church because it is boring and thus am not religious."

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slowmutant
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07 Feb 2009, 9:01 pm

TheUnnamedOne wrote:

Emor wrote:

That person may find God later on in life. Young people usually aren't very keen on religion.

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