Delusional

[Nam]

3sigma,

1st: one's a visual, the other is not.

2nd: not a pyschiatrist. I don't know. But it seems the first one is also a visual, and the other isn't.

3rd: my opinion is my opinion. Whether it deals in evidence, or just what I personally feel, I find to be irrelevant.

-Nam

[3sigma]

Pareidolia is at least based on something present to the senses whereas a personal relationship with one’s God is not. Given that, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that if using pareidolia to confirm one’s beliefs is delusional then using a purely subjective personal relationship to confirm one’s beliefs is also delusional?

Are you saying that whether you have evidence to justify your opinions is irrelevant to you? If your opinions are unjustified by any evidence then why should anyone even consider them?

[Nam]

3sigma,

How do you know it's not? Do you have evidence god doesn't exist? Are you god?

Second part: not what I said at all.

-Nam

[3sigma]

How do you know it's not? Do you have evidence god doesn't exist? Are you god?

You keep retreating to that response, but the problem with it is that it applies to your opinion as well, yet you still hold that opinion. How do you know God doesn’t place the image of Jesus on pieces of toast? Do you have any evidence that it doesn’t? Are you God? You can’t prove God doesn’t put images on toast so does that mean your opinion is false or not worthy of consideration? Now, if your opinion is worthy of consideration then it follows that it is reasonable to conclude that people who use a purely subjective relationship with their God to confirm their beliefs are also delusional.

Second part: not what I said at all.

You said, “my opinion is my opinion. Whether it deals in evidence, or just what I personally feel, I find to be irrelevant.” That sounds like something a religious believer would say. If you didn’t mean it is irrelevant to you whether you have evidence to justify your opinions then what exactly did you mean? Are your opinions substantiated with sound evidence or not?

[Nam]

3sigma,

You say "Pareidolia is present in one's senses but a personal relationship with god is not". How do you know it's not? Based on your perception and opinion that their god doesn't exist, no? So, i'm not retreating anywhere.

I'm not assuming god exists or doesn't exist.. you are. So, whether I feel god puts images on food is irrelevant. Now, you may say, "you brought it up", and I would reply, "I did" but did I mention god?

-Nam

[HAL]

my opinion is my opinion. Whether it deals in evidence, or just what I personally feel, I find to be irrelevant.

You should be ashamed to give an answer like that on this forum.

[Nam]

For some reason my phone is showing this website only in text. I can barely read anything coherently. The only thing that looks normal is the comment area. Hal, I don't, to answer your statement.

-Nam

[jaimehlers]

2nd comment:

Not a strawmen.

5th comment:

Not a strawmen.

Is this really the best you can do?  "Not a strawman".  Give me a break.  Didn't you just get done saying that when you state something, that you have to back it up?  Yet here you are, 'rebutting' my accusations of you using strawmen by simply saying, "not a strawman".  That doesn't fly.  If you weren't using strawmen, then precisely what were you trying to do?

For example, the first strawman was basically a massive exaggeration of my point; I quote, "But, you seem to be saying, and I could be wrong, but, alcohol leads to smoking pot, which leads to doing crack, which leads to doing heroin, which leads to murder, which leads to ass rape in prison! That's what you're saying, right?"  Except that you never really showed how that actually tied into what I really said, which was that delusions that are not medical or psychiatric almost always come from ignorance.  Instead of something simple and straightforward, like "Delusions may come from ignorance, but does ignorance always lead to a delusion", you instead came up with an overly-convoluted causal chain which you used to describe my argument.  The fact that you phrased it as a question and said you could be wrong doesn't change the fact that you caricatured my argument and then treated the caricature as if it was my actual argument, which is what a strawman is.

The second strawman was just as bad.  You 'countered' my example of experts testifying in criminal cases by stating: "And, sometimes that "opinion" by said "expert" leads innocent people to death row. Not a good example, I feel."  In other words, you took my example and addressed the worst possible outcome, then acted as if you had countered the example in full, when in fact you had only addressed a very small subset of possible outcomes of expert testimony.  Again, that's what a strawman is.

And now you simply say, "not a strawman" in response to me calling you on them and expect that to fly?  No, it does not, and it will not if you try it again.  I expect you to respond to this, and I expect you to not respond with "not a strawman" or some variant on that theme.

1st comment:

You're talking about myths that, most likely, don't even believe in anymore. Why not, as examples, use ones that people do believe in? There's a thought.

Dodging.  I asked you very specifically if you thought those beliefs counted as delusions, and you basically sidestepped it entirely by claiming nobody believed in them anymore.  So I'll ask again.  Do you think those ancient beliefs that I cited count as delusions?

4th comment:

Only if ones words canbe sourced neutrally.

Let me reiterate, I don't accept your idea that someone's words have to be "neutrally sourced" in order to count as evidence.

6th comment.

"In their defense" -- another one of my points.

I think you misunderstood.  The "they" I was referring to are the people accusing theists of being delusional and various unsupported theistic beliefs of being delusions.

7th comment:

I find it's always "semantics" et al, that one goes to in certain discussions dealing with one's belief, or in this case: non-belief.

This sounds an awful lot like an excuse to justify continuing to argue about the semantics of what delusional means rather than arguing about whether it does any good to consider people delusional.

[Gnu Ordure]

I apologise, Gnu Ordure, I thought I had responded. I see what happened. I compose my posts offline ..... <snip>

No worries.

So in a general discussion where atheists are not making medical diagnoses and they describe religious believers as deluded/delusional, is it reasonable to assume they are saying religious believers hold beliefs that are not true rather than saying they hold psychotic beliefs maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary?

No, I don't think we can reasonably assume what atheists mean when they call theists deluded/delusional. Some may simply mean, "I think your beliefs are wrong", others may mean, "I think you're clinically insane".

Which is basically why I say that the words should be avoided; in the former case, it would be simpler and less ambiguous to say that the theist is wrong. The latter is just wrong, because the medical profession doesn't regard normal theists as clinically insane.

So, 3sigma, will you concede that your claim in post #191 was wrong?

Again, I must point out that I don’t call religious believers delusional. I might occasionally call them deluded. The problem here is that there is a significant difference between those two words, but you (and Nam) appear to be conflating them.  Deluded means believing something that is not true. Delusional means holding an idiosyncratic belief despite it being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder. That connotation of being a mental disorder is why I, personally, don’t call religious believers delusional. I don’t think they have a clinical mental disorder; I just think they are mistaken.

Now, given those meanings of the words, will you concede that religious believers are deluded, but not necessarily delusional?

[3sigma]

No, I don't think we can reasonably assume what atheists mean when they call theists deluded/delusional. Some may simply mean, "I think your beliefs are wrong", others may mean, "I think you're clinically insane".

Which is basically why I say that the words should be avoided; in the former case, it would be simpler and less ambiguous to say that the theist is wrong. The latter is just wrong, because the medical profession doesn't regard normal theists as clinically insane.

I agree that delusional should be avoided because of its psychiatric meaning, which I think is the most common interpretation of the word. I agree that deluded should also be avoided, mainly because I think too many people conflate its meaning with delusional. It is for those reasons that I don’t use delusional and I tend to avoid deluded.

So, 3sigma, will you concede that your claim in post #191 was wrong?

Of course not. You may think the words are synonymous and treat them as such, but I don’t think you’ll find any dictionary that includes the psychiatric meaning under the entry for delude. It is only delusional that carries that particular meaning.

[Nam]

Jamiehlers,

To my understanding, a strawmen is when you say kids in school should get free lunches, and I reply that if we did that they'd get fat.

Me stating that "expert opinion" isn't always (or imply it) effective in a court of law since too many innocent people are sent to jail, and death row[1] isn't a strawmen. It's more a difference of opinion.

I'm going to have to get to the rest of your comments later, on a phone without a sliding keypad.


-Nam

1.	though I recognize other factors may be involved, as a whole.

[Gnu Ordure]

No, I don't think we can reasonably assume what atheists mean when they call theists deluded/delusional. Some may simply mean, "I think your beliefs are wrong", others may mean, "I think you're clinically insane".

Which is basically why I say that the words should be avoided; in the former case, it would be simpler and less ambiguous to say that the theist is wrong. The latter is just wrong, because the medical profession doesn't regard normal theists as clinically insane.

I agree that delusional should be avoided because of its psychiatric meaning, which I think is the most common interpretation of the word. I agree that deluded should also be avoided, mainly because I think too many people conflate its meaning with delusional.

And the reason they 'conflate' the two meanings is because the words are synonyms. So they are correct in conflating them.

So, 3sigma, will you concede that your claim in post #191 was wrong?

Of course not. You may think the words are synonymous and treat them as such,

They are synonyms; the Oxford dictionary which you yourself (partially) cited defines delusion in terms of being deluded: the state of being deluded. Therefore, delusional and deluded are synonyms. Which part of that don't you understand?

It is only delusional that carries that particular meaning.

<sigh> No, it isn't. The dictionary you cited defines one word in terms of the other. And I already cited some psychiatrists in the real world using the words interchangeably. They're synonyms, 3sigma.

You're the only Humpty-Dumpty who disagrees with this.

[3sigma]

They are synonyms; the Oxford dictionary which you yourself (partially) cited defines delusion in terms of being deluded: the state of being deluded. Therefore, delusional and deluded are synonyms. Which part of that don't you understand?
…
<sigh> No, it isn't. The dictionary you cited defines one word in terms of the other. And I already cited some psychiatrists in the real world using the words interchangeably. They're synonyms, 3sigma.

You're the only Humpty-Dumpty who disagrees with this.

Please, spare me your sighs.

OED
 Delude is the verb. It means to make someone believe something that is not true. Deluded is the adjective from the verb. It means believing something that is not true. Note that there is no second meaning for a psychiatric sense to delude.

Delusion is the noun. It has two meanings, One is: an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder. The second meaning is: the state of being deluded. Delusional is the adjective from the noun.

Merriam-Webster
Delude is the verb. It means to mislead the mind or judgment of: to trick or deceive. Deluded is the adjective from the verb. It means tricked or deceived. Note that there is no second meaning for a psychiatric sense to delude.

Delusion is the noun. Again, it has two meanings. One is: the state of being deluded. The second meaning has two sub-meanings, a: something falsely or delusively believed; and b: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary. Delusional is the adjective from the noun.


This is the last time I’m going to bother explaining this. Deluded is the adjective from the verb delude. It means believing something that is not true, tricked or deceived. There is no second meaning for deluded so when we say someone is deluded, we only mean that they believe something that is not true. Delusional is the adjective from the noun delusion. It could mean deluded, but using it in that sense would just be confusing because if you mean deluded then it would be better to say that instead. However, based on the common reaction to the word delusional, it appears that it is usually taken to mean holding an idiosyncratic belief, typically as a symptom of a mental disorder.

[screwtape]

Aren't you guys bored yet?

[Nam]

I'm not.

-Nam

[Nam]

jamiehlers,

2nd comment:

Not dodging, I just found it silly since they are religions and gods that are seen as fiction by most people, including current religious people. I see it as fiction, as most others do.

3rd comment:

Good for you.

4th comment:

Yeah, which is one of my points.

5th comment:

I don't care if they can be considered delusional based on any criteria, I care about calling them delusional based on such criteria. Which is what I've been arguing against this whole time.

-Nam

[jaimehlers]

To my understanding, a strawmen is when you say kids in school should get free lunches, and I reply that if we did that they'd get fat.

That is an example of a strawman, yes.  But it also applies to other, less blatant examples.  At its heart, a strawman argument distorts what another person says and then addresses the distortion rather than the actual argument they're making.  That's how you came across to me both times.

Me stating that "expert opinion" isn't always (or imply it) effective in a court of law since too many innocent people are sent to jail, and death row[1] isn't a strawmen. It's more a difference of opinion.

1.	though I recognize other factors may be involved, as a whole.

I'm aware that some innocent people are wrongly sent to jail, and probably some of those go to jail because of expert testimony.  But the way you wrote that statement came across not as saying that it sometimes (or occasionally) wasn't effective, but that it seldom was effective.  It was like saying, "some forensics labs make mistakes when doing DNA testing, and some people get convicted because of that, so DNA testing isn't a good method to use for determining if someone's a criminal or not."  Do you see what I'm saying?

2nd comment:

Not dodging, I just found it silly since they are religions and gods that are seen as fiction by most people, including current religious people. I see it as fiction, as most others do.

You still haven't answered my question.  Fictional or not, silly or not, do you or do you not consider those ancient beliefs to be a kind of delusion?

5th comment:

I don't care if they can be considered delusional based on any criteria, I care about calling them delusional based on such criteria. Which is what I've been arguing against this whole time.

So for you, it's that you don't feel it's appropriate to label them as delusional.  For example, like calling someone who's crippled a cripple, or calling someone who's retarded a retard.  Do I have the gist of it?

[Nam]

jamiehlers,

You're not going to get me to answer a question that I find to be a stupid question. All I will do will give you a stupid answer. Perhaps if you rephrase it to not sound so stupid, i'll answer it.

Why would someone call a cripple a cripple? Does one think they don't know they are cripple? So you think one who is sane 95% of the time doesn't recognize that they could be insane 5% of the time?

When you see a mentally challenged person, do you walk up to them and call them a retard? Do you do that in small company among friends?

You see where I'm going with this. I doubt anyone here, or probably anyone here does any of those things to other people: call them what they are but apparently calling theists delusional is the exception.

-Nam

[Ambassador Pony]

...Fictional or not, silly or not, do you or do you not consider those ancient beliefs to be a kind of delusion?

NAM, just answer this question with a non-silly yes, or no.

[jaimehlers]

There are no such things as stupid questions, Nam.  If you choose to keep dodging out of answering it, that's your business, but I lose respect for you every time you pull out another excuse to avoid answering it[1].  And I'm not going to quit asking it until I have an answer; I'm stubborn that way.  Once again:  Do you consider those ancient beliefs to be delusions, or not?  It doesn't matter that people don't currently believe in them; the fact that people in the past believed in them is enough to work with.

As for the rest of your post; a simple yes/no answer would have sufficed.

But as to your questions, it depends on how blunt the person is.  I would not assume that everyone here refrains from calling someone crippled a cripple, or calling someone retarded a retard.  In fact, given that some people have stated quite clearly that they see nothing wrong with calling someone with delusional beliefs deluded, I think that's a dangerous assumption to make.

1.	Claiming that it "sounds stupid" is not believable.

[Nam]

jaimehlers,

You're stubborn, I'm stubborn: I think we may be at an em passe[1], or something. Okay, perhaps if I answer it this way: if we both were living during that time, and we both were atheists by today's concept of atheism: would either of us find their beliefs delusional[2]? That's the best I can do.

People here, for the most part, do not call people "deluded". However, it's not an "assumption" on my part, more of an observation.

-Nam

1.	en passe? Whatever.
2.	I do not expect an answer, not the point of the question.

[Nam]

bertaberts,

Dodging is defined as avoiding something in a quick pace. I am not "avoiding" anything at any pace. I stated I found it to be silly, which was why I wasn't goin gto answer it. Then I suggested he rephrase it but he said no. So, I took the initiative to rephrase it, and you say I am dodging.

I think you just enjoy smiting me any chance you get; 'cause answering in topic is just too much work.

-Nam

[Nam]

FYI: I won't be on for the next 6 days. Going to Puerto Rico by way of freighter[1] and I'll be back some time next Tuesday, I think.

So, see ya then.

-Nam

1.	afriend is a navigator on the freighter

[bertatberts]

bertaberts,

Dodging is defined as avoiding something in a quick pace. I am not "avoiding" anything at any pace. I stated I found it to be silly, which was why I wasn't goin gto answer it. Then I suggested he rephrase it but he said no. So, I took the initiative to rephrase it, and you say I am dodging.

I think you just enjoy smiting me any chance you get; 'cause answering in topic is just too much work.

-Nam

You were asked by Ambassador Pony

...Fictional or not, silly or not, do you or do you not consider those ancient beliefs to be a kind of delusion?

NAM, just answer this question with a non-silly yes, or no.

You then went on to avoid answering it again, and answering with a question is definitely a dodge, sorry that's how I see it. A simple yes or no would have been much easier, don't you think.

[HAL]

FYI: I won't be on for the next 6 days. Going to Puerto Rico by way of freighter[1] and I'll be back some time next Tuesday, I think.

So, see ya then.

1.	afriend is a navigator on the freighter

That's the worst excuse for not answering a question I've ever seen on the forum.

[Ambassador Pony]

NAM's vacation will actually be for one month. He can answer when he returns.

[changeling]

It is my belief that nam is merely playing a game to set a new personal record
for the length of time a topic of his has remained active.
But then again I was once deluded about Christianity too.

[jaimehlers]

It's actually "impasse"[1], Nam.

And also, you're making this much harder than it needs to be.  I asked whether you thought ancient religious beliefs were delusional or not, not whether you might hypothetically have thought that those religious beliefs were delusional if you were an atheist back then - not that you gave a straight answer even to your rephrasing of my question.

When you consistently avoid answering a question, it's known as dodging the question.  For example, answering the question with another question, stating that the question is "silly" or "stupid" and that you shouldn't have to answer it, or rephrasing the question so that it no longer addresses the same point.  They all boil down to the same thing, which is trying to get out of answering the question.

I don't think it's too much to expect you to simply answer the question I asked.

1.	like impassable

[Gnu Ordure]

Those are just scratching the surface of mythology.  The peoples who came up with them really believed those things; that wolves chased the sun and the moon and tried to eat them, that gods flung lightning bolts and shook the earth, and many more besides.  Would you consider such things delusional?

I haven't read all of Nam's side of this thread, so forgive me if I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

Nam has been saying (as have I) that he doesn't want to call theists 'delusional' to their faces, nor to refer them as such in public discourse.

Therefore, it seems a rather mean strategy (if it was intentional) to ask him directly whether he thinks ancient theists were delusional. If we assume that the answer in Nam's head is 'yes', he doesn't want to say so because that would make him a hypocrite.

For the same reason, I wouldn't answer the question either. 

So feel free to ban me for a month as well.

Gnu.

PS Actually my answer would be: I don't wish to answer that question on the public forum; but if you ask me the question on a thread in the Atheist Corner, which isn't open to theists, I will answer it. Would that still count as dodging?

In fact, could we move this whole thread into the Corner? There are no theists currently engaged in it, and so the discussion could continue unhindered by the linguistic limitataions which Nam and I have imposed on ourselves.