Posted on 08/06/2011 5:51:20 PM PDT by neverdem
Looking for patterns in life and then infusing them with meaning, from alien intervention to federal conspiracy.
Superstitions arise as the result of the spurious identification of patterns. Even pigeons are superstitious. In an experiment where food is delivered randomly, pigeons will note what they were doing when the pellet arrived, such as twirling to the left and then pecking a button, and perform the maneuver over and over until the next pellet arrives. A pigeon rain dance. The behavior is not much different than in the case of a baseball player who forgets to shave one morning, hits a home run a few hours later and then makes it a policy never to shave on game days.
Beliefs come first; reasons second. That's the insightful message of The Believing Brain, by Michael Shermer, the founder of Skeptic magazine. In the book, he brilliantly lays out what modern cognitive research has to tell us about his subject—namely, that our brains are "belief engines" that naturally "look for and find patterns" and then infuse them with meaning. These meaningful patterns form beliefs that shape our understanding of reality. Our brains tend to seek out information that confirms our beliefs, ignoring information that contradicts them. Mr. Shermer calls this "belief-dependent reality." The well-worn phrase "seeing is believing" has it backward: Our believing dictates what we're seeing.
Mr. Shermer marshals an impressive array of evidence from game theory, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. A human ancestor hears a rustle in the grass. Is it the wind or a lion? If he assumes it's the wind and the rustling turns out to be a lion, then he's not an ancestor anymore. Since early man had only a split second to make such decisions, Mr. Shermer says, we are descendants of ancestors whose "default position is..."
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Response: It is(or was) called "operant conditioning." It works for some behaviors but fails to work if a person knows it is being tried on him.
Statement: He doesn’t take religious faith seriously except as an object for explanatory debunking—God is simply the human explanation for pattern-making and agency on an epic scale.
More atheist crap on an epic scale.
They at least understand the existence of cause and effect then.
Beliefs come first; reasons second.
So tell me, did Jesus Christ fulfill 365 proficies attributed to the Messiah, or not? Did He resurrect?
The answers to those two questions repudiates this entire article, and validates Psalms 14:1.
I often wonder why atheists are so loud and proud of being totally unaware of their spirit and it’s nature. How can one live in a human body and deny their own spirit?
Anyway, each to his own, but I would not want to be doing that to myself.
Our minds are attuned to patterns because patterns exist. The lion in the grass crawls and moves in a limited number of ways or patterns and learning how to see those patterns is a measure of training and experience not just a creation of a mind.
Someone wants to rehash a common phenomenon in the hopes of seeming novel and significant.
Everything has a pattern. That is a fact.
Ping
Problem for Mr. Shermer is that belief comes first for atheists too.
Somehow he overlooked that little problem.
I hate when that happens...
Unfortunately, Mr. Shermer just assumed that his premise that "Our brains tend to seek out information that confirms our beliefs, ignoring information that contradicts them" doesn't apply to his own beliefs.
Oops?
Zero hears a rustling in the grass ... raise taxes. Reid hears a rustling in the grass ... raise taxes. Pelosi hears a rustling in the grass ... raise taxes. So objectively we can categorically state with a modest degree of certainty that raising taxes is caused by a rustling in the grass or with an overwhelming degree of certainty that the Democratic leadership is composed of simpletons.
Yes. There is a lot of assumin’ goin’ on out there. LOL
It apparently is Shermer's belief pattern to assume that these gods were "created" by people. But is it not more likely that the people are seeing lions in bushes where there are none because sometimes people have encountered actual lions? Nobody is afraid of an invisible pink unicorn in the bushes...because no one has encountered one. Now the idea that different people think of God or gods differently...well why the heck should that be a wonder? Such are experienced spiritually, by numinous experience, and are things beyond our comprehension...thus it is should not be surprising people come away with different stories.
This guy certainly sees only what he wants to see, and does not apply reason very well at all. But what else can an reasonable person expect from naturalism? A philosophy that demands super-hyper-skeptism of all competing philosophies and at the same time whole-sale knee jerk acceptance of itself.
What a fool...its pathetic.
Wow, that's a clever and insightful argument.
He drew a conclusion, he did not make an argument.
You seem to be implying an argument that is so weak you are afraid to say it plainly...so I will for you.
You are trying to associate all arguments opposing your view with a reactionary statement that you selected out...and thus conclude..uhm...yes...uhm...conclude what?
Mr. Shermer would appear to be putting himself at a distinct evolutionary disadvantage with his sneering, yet oddly self-congratulatory disbelief. Last I heard, pattern recognition is highly correlated with general intelligence,
Just a Darwin Award waiting to happen, that one. “Hey dude, hold my latte and watch this.”
The truth is a lie or maybe not.....maybe It's just the meds or my brain chemistry.
The first step to changing truth into a lie is to create doubt.
I.E.“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Another atheist tries to explain why he believes in nothing.
We are all game theorists (all living creatures are)! What game theory evidence does he marshal except that which supports his nihilism.
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