Jose Fly
Fisker of men
Certainly.
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Is Religion Hazardous to the Developing Brain?
- Thread starter sonofskeptish
- Start date
Certainly.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
We do what we can with what we have.
What do you propose we do instead? Questioning is all well and good, but if you're going to say something isn't good enough, it's not unreasonable to ask you how it could be improved.
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
No, I don't think you can say religion and philosophy are "just like" those things.
Except those positive outcomes were established as valid by an independent means.
But there are unified consistent answers in psychology. Simply pointing out areas where there are disagreement does not mean there is no agreement on anything. What you're trying to argue here is that because psychologists disagree on some things, they must disagree on everything, an obvious logical fallacy.
Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
Prove it !
Eastern Religious practices have been established as valid by an independent means. This is what Yoga Philosophy is built on.
No its not. Many radical behaviorist rejects the Idea of the collective unconscious mind. Thus rejecting the whole priceable that Jung built his whole system of therapy on. The differences are as great as one person saying the world is flat and another as saying its round.
Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
One one hand you have Freud saying that your problem is due to the way you were potty trained and then have you talk about your childhood. B.F. Skinner would break down the problem in to behavioral components then make a concrete change in you patterns you live by. A Psychiatrist would say it's due to a chemical imbalance and give you a pill. If you can come up with a unified theory of modern psychology you will make millions and they will name a university after you.
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Jose Fly
Fisker of men
And so far, "what we have" (religion and philosophy) has failed to produce a single unified, consistent answer to any of the questions it seeks to answer.
Let me give you a specific example. Not too long ago, the Catholic Church decreed that unbaptized babies no longer go to "limbo". In their press releases and such, the church stated that this decision was the result of "several years of study". Now, remember that for a very long time, the church taught that unbaptized babies do go into limbo, and for the most part taught it as irrefutable fact. But suddenly that changed.
Now to me, it seemed obvious that the church was simply going with the times and adopting a less harsh, less draconian stance. That's the directions religions have been going over the last 100 years or so (with some exceptions). But that also leads to another inescapable conclusion: they're making this up as they go along. Because obviously, there's absolutely no independent way to tell if the old position, the new position, or some other position is true.
So, based on that, IMO when you have absolutely no way of knowing whether the answer to a question is correct or total made-up BS, then the only proper course of action is to be honest and answer "We don't know" whenever the question comes up. Just say you don't know and let it go.
But for whatever reason, there are a lot of people who cannot accept "I don't know". For those people, I guess if made-up BS is preferable to "I don't know", that's a whole other issue.
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
Logical fallacy: Shifting the burden of proof.
You're the one making the positive claim, i.e. that religion and philosophy are just like every other field that deals with humans. Thus, the burden of proof is on you. It is not on everyone else to prove you wrong.
And those are......?
The key word there being "radical". Again, you're working under the fallacy of composition, i.e. that because there are some disagreements within psychology, there is no agreement on anything within psychology.
Same thing.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Because in many situations, it's an unacceptable answer. The trick is to remember that any answer you come up with is opinion, not fact.
Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
Radical behaviorism is a philosophy developed by B. F. Skinner that underlies the experimental analysis of behavior approach to psychology. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_behaviorism.
You just have no Idea of what you are posting about in this area.
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Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
There are areas that Hindus,Muslims and Christians all agree on:
-It is wrong to have Sex with you mother.
-Humans are alive.
-Morals are Importent.
-There are scriptures in the world.
So religion and psychology are a lot a like. Both agree on some things and disagree on others.
I never said that there is no agreement on any fact in psychology. I am saying that there is no agreement on many things.
So you are using a straw man argument based on misrepresentation of my position. This by the way is an informal fallacy.
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Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
That meditation alters our awareness and leads us to different levels of consciousness.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html
I can give you more if you like.
logician
Well-Known Member
My understanding is that the human brain develops until we are in our early twenties, and that during this time, the activities we engage in can have a dramatic impact on the final results of our brain's development.
My question (which I hope will trigger some good discussion) is this...
Do you think ongoing exposure to primarily faith-based decision-making as we grow up, versus exposure to evidence-based critical-thinking and reasoning, results in the religious and non-religious having significantly different brains and thought-processes?
And if so...
In addition to things like drugs and alcohol, should religion be something we protect children from until they're brains have fully developed? Or does a parent have the right to entrench their religious beliefs in their child's brain?
Yeah, yeah, before you say it I know... this opening post is bias...
Most religions tend to keep the developing brain from, well, developing.
tarasan
Well-Known Member
how? I do see how it does
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
No that's fine. I've been practicing yoga and meditation for 12 years now, so those results confirm what I thought to be true.
Interesting though that religion's independent means of establishing validity is science.
Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
I would worry about any group religious or not that rejected science.
AxisMundi
E Pluribus Unum!!!
"Goddunnit" tends to eliminate critical thinking.
For example, a person who was indoctrinated by his YECer parents will not accept that the Earth is indeed billions of years old.
It attacks what he was brought up to believe, as well as the authority of not only his bible and his god, but of his very parents as well.
So the adult YECer goes through life convinced that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that Evolution is false, and science is some anti-Christian movement merely out to destroy his religion.
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
It's not a rejection of science that's the issue here. It's whether or not religion itself offers a means to differentiate itself from fiction. And so far, the only way it can is to rely on science.
The problem is, not all religious assertions are testable by science. So what then? That's when religion relies on authority, revelation, tradition, and the like. But as we've seen, those means give about as diverse set of "answers" as can be.
Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
I understand what you are saying but I am a simple man so I have simple beliefs.
This is how I look at it, my view is also a very Orthodox Hindu view.
The words of the scriptures are just seen as a methodology to realize the truth. What is the truth? That all is One, Brahman or God, the more we realize and directly experience this fact and the less we suffer. This truth can not be excepted because someone in the past said it is true and wrote it in a book. It must be directly experienced through spiritual practices like meditation, and being a good person, serving the poor, not hurting other beings.....Most importetent of all take long looks at your self.
The unexamined life is not worth living.- Socrates
You can believe in a being called God or not it matters not to me, read the bible or Shakespeare. (The inspiration for many secular folks in the west)
My personal belief is the more evolved I am the better world citizen I will become. If I am going to be an Atheists I want to be like Bertrand Russell, a Christian- Bishop Tutu, a Hindu Vinoba Bhave. To me the proof of what type of man I am is how I live. The proof of any personal world view is what type of people it can create.
sonofskeptish
It is what it is
Cool, now Atheists can experiece God too...
The God Helmet - How it works.
The God Helmet - How it works.