Theistic Evolution/Old Earth Creationism

[Liberty]

Again, there is a line people can cross here, where the low-order background insanity becomes a real, recognizable condition with serious consequences. The person who believes angels or demons speak to them and tell them to do things, the person who randomly stops what they're doing and addresses God as they would a person in the room, the person for whom prayer is such an intensive ritual activity that it takes up a large fraction of their time with strange behaviors on par with obsessive hand-washing or some such... you can make a good case for such people being crazy.

I think a large percentage of religious Christians do actually believe God responds to them. They're not crazy in the sense that they're actually hearing a booming voice in their head; rather, they simply interpret various occurrences, thoughts, or interactions as communications from God. Really, it's the same sort of religious behavior humanity has been engaged in for millenia in the form of extispicy, tea-leaf reading, or bird-omen interpretation, except it's even more generic. Religious people often say things like "and then God showed me X" to describe some personal realization they recently had, or "and God really answered all my prayers" after they get that new job opening they were after. Sometimes it's as simple as interpreting a recently established personal conviction as evidence of a divine communication.

The hilarious thing is that it's probably difficult to distinguish true, clinical insanity, (except in extreme cases) from the normal human tendency to "discover" purposeful, thinking agents behind every ordinary happenstance.

This is what I was about to point out, actually. Simon, you are right that only a very few people say they hear literal voices. However, most Christians (and those in other religions as well) believe that God is talking to them nevertheless. A woman is about to go to the mall and spend more money than she should, and she knows that, and then the car doesn't start. God clearly intervened to stop her from making the unwise step of spending too much money. A woman randomly thinks about an old friend and sends up a prayer for her; later that week, she learns that on that very day a the friend had had a heart operation. God had clearly moved her to think of, and pray for, this friend at that exact time. Sometimes someone will say God spoke to her through a friend who spoke words of wisdom when she needed them, or through a particular Bible passage that meant something to her in a moment of need. And on and on. So in that sense God does serve as an imaginary friend to most believers, and they carry on exchanges with him; however, God's words are not spoken in a literal voice.

[Simon_Jester]

But, once again, this tends to cross the threshold dividing "insanity" from "background noise." The belief that there is an intelligent force behind what others would consider to be random events really only becomes an illness at the point where it becomes disabling.

Calling people insane for thinking there is an imaginaary intelligent being influencing their luck, when this isn't triggering serious dysfunctions, is much like calling people insane for occasional bouts of unreasonable gloominess. "Gloomy sometimes" is not the same thing as "depressed," and "believes in shoulder-angel giving signs that you shouldn't do things" isn't in the same class as "thinks monsters tell you to scribble all over the walls of public building" or something.

[Kanastrous]

Yeah, but Simon, people in a democratic republic vote on laws that constrain the behavior and rights of their fellow citizens based upon what they believe the shoulder-angel is whispering in their ear. Maybe these people can function in day-to-day life without too much trouble (okay, fine, yes, the vast majority of them can and do) but their faith in the shoulder-angel, and the sky-god he represents leads them to act in ways that harm their fellow citizens and their nation.

[Simon_Jester]

All right, Kanastrous, I'm not going to argue over this point anymore. It's tiring and useless, since I can't very well convince you that something is tolerable.

But I would like to know what you propose to do about what you deem to be the problem of religion. I don't see it as a problem in need of a solution, but you do; what have you got in mind?

[Kanastrous]

A long, long process of education. Gotta proof them against the mind-poison while they are young. This is a generational thing, not a change-everyone's-mind-by-next-Tuesday kind of thing.

Which means that over time we have to both improve public education and continue to diminish the role of religious institutions in public life. It will be a chore but it looks as though there are existing trends in our favor. If those trends can be accelerated, so much the better.

[Maj]

Yeah, but Simon, people in a democratic republic vote on laws that constrain the behavior and rights of their fellow citizens based upon what they believe the shoulder-angel is whispering in their ear. Maybe these people can function in day-to-day life without too much trouble (okay, fine, yes, the vast majority of them can and do) but their faith in the shoulder-angel, and the sky-god he represents leads them to act in ways that harm their fellow citizens and their nation.

I think that the sky-god shoulder-angel is really just a distraction tactic. Experiments demonstrate that while people may claim to act on the advice of the shoulder-angel, in reality, the advice the shoulder-angel gives is really the person's own beliefs. When the person's personal beliefs were manipulated, the properties of the shoulder-angel were altered to match the change. More information is available here.

I don't see it as a problem in need of a solution, but you do; what have you got in mind?

Since people tend to absorb the beliefs of the people around them (According to Dr. Andrew Newberg in Why We Believe What We Believe, social influence is one of the four key components when it comes to creating beliefs), it would seem like a potential idea would be to keep religious groups (or any other significant group) from becoming too insular. While I personally don't have a problem with people believing in sky-gods or shoulder-angels, I don't really see how exposing people to other peoples and cultures would really be a bad thing.