Faith and the Leopard
Your neighbor comes to you and yells:
"There was a leopard in my garage! It ran off when I went to get my phone"
So if you claim to have seen a leopard, there are several possibilities:
1. You are joking
2. You are lying
3. You are hallucinating
4. You are mistaken (it's just a cat or someone "pranked" you)
5. You are right
More data based on evidence from previous observations is needed.
If you were a big joker, I'd go with 1.
If you were a frequent liar, I'd go with 2
If you were schizophrenic, I'd go with 3
If ignorant or easily fooled, I'd go with 4
If you were a zoo keeper and very familiar with leopards and had no history of hallucinations, and I knew you were honest and knew that you were not joking-- I would trust you. Especially if multiple people were claiming seeing a leopard in that area.
Additional observations can often be the evidence that allows for a reasonable conclusion. Conclusions are not always wrong because they are infrequent or because they are not generally socially acknowledged.
This can become increasingly complex. Especially when alternative explanations that are more statistically probable are made available.
In regards to theological claims, the most common explanations are as follows:
1). The individual making the claim was lying for power or perks (the motivation of the person making the claims should be evaluated).
2). The individual was delusional or subject to forms of memory bias or other well documented phenomena that can disrupt trust in ones observations. (combination of ignorance and delusion).
This has been the method that I have used in relation to theology and the results of this method is why I believe in the existence of God.
Going back to the leopard analogy, lets say that I trusted you and you assured me that you were not joking and I also knew you to not suffer from any form of psychosis. But I still REALLY think that you didn't see a leopard, I would look for other "more probable" explanations. Like this cat that looks like a leopard (see image below). A little bit of online research allowed me to come across a much more reasonable explanation-- it was a cat that looked like a leopard.
But lets say that I questioned you further, and you assured me that the cat was standing next to your house cat and it was MUCH MUCH larger. Then lets say I also talked to the other people in the neighborhood who claimed to have seen the same thing and they stated that the "Leopard" was standing beside their enormous dog and was bigger than the dog.... Then lets say that you and others described the exact sound that the leopard made and it was distinctly that of a leopard and not a cat, and everyone claimed that the animal made the same noise.
Does this mean that it DEFINITELY was a leopard? No, of course not, but it just makes the conclusion more complex.
Sometimes when people decide that encounters with God are so infrequent that they must never have ever occurred, they jump at the lowest hanging explanation that supports their conclusion, even when further evidence does not support this conclusion.
If conclusions are based on statistical probability and rejecting observations by utilizing alternate explanations that do not fit the observational evidence and so therefore are NOT based on observational evidence, then it would be impossible to ever conclude that spiritual experiences ever could occur-- mostly because they are rare.
Leopards are rare but that does not mean that they do not exist or that seeing one is impossible.
Sometimes peoples experiences are written off as "elevation" or "heightened emotions".
If someone claims to see one, it is obviously more reasonable to initially conclude options 1 thru 4. Just should also be the case if someone claims to have interacted with God. But if you THOROUGHLY evaluate all of these possibilities and after extensive analysis and evaluating other peoples claims, the evidence truly is pointing to option 5 (they are telling the truth)... maybe its time to open your mind a little bit.
However, the pragmatic (beneficial) utility should be evaluated of the claims and also the claims should be evaluated to see if they are withing the scope of science or outside of the scope of science. If the claims exist within the scope of science, then have they been reasonably disproved? If they have, then the beliefs should likely need to be discarded, or likely at least amended. If they lay outside of the scope of science, then they can never be proved or disproved by science. Evaluate the evidence for them, and see if alternate explanations truly explain them adequately and look to see what the implications of the belief is and whether or not its acceptance is pragmatic.
"There was a leopard in my garage! It ran off when I went to get my phone"
So if you claim to have seen a leopard, there are several possibilities:
1. You are joking
2. You are lying
3. You are hallucinating
4. You are mistaken (it's just a cat or someone "pranked" you)
5. You are right
More data based on evidence from previous observations is needed.
If you were a big joker, I'd go with 1.
If you were a frequent liar, I'd go with 2
If you were schizophrenic, I'd go with 3
If ignorant or easily fooled, I'd go with 4
If you were a zoo keeper and very familiar with leopards and had no history of hallucinations, and I knew you were honest and knew that you were not joking-- I would trust you. Especially if multiple people were claiming seeing a leopard in that area.
Additional observations can often be the evidence that allows for a reasonable conclusion. Conclusions are not always wrong because they are infrequent or because they are not generally socially acknowledged.
This can become increasingly complex. Especially when alternative explanations that are more statistically probable are made available.
In regards to theological claims, the most common explanations are as follows:
1). The individual making the claim was lying for power or perks (the motivation of the person making the claims should be evaluated).
2). The individual was delusional or subject to forms of memory bias or other well documented phenomena that can disrupt trust in ones observations. (combination of ignorance and delusion).
This has been the method that I have used in relation to theology and the results of this method is why I believe in the existence of God.
Going back to the leopard analogy, lets say that I trusted you and you assured me that you were not joking and I also knew you to not suffer from any form of psychosis. But I still REALLY think that you didn't see a leopard, I would look for other "more probable" explanations. Like this cat that looks like a leopard (see image below). A little bit of online research allowed me to come across a much more reasonable explanation-- it was a cat that looked like a leopard.
But lets say that I questioned you further, and you assured me that the cat was standing next to your house cat and it was MUCH MUCH larger. Then lets say I also talked to the other people in the neighborhood who claimed to have seen the same thing and they stated that the "Leopard" was standing beside their enormous dog and was bigger than the dog.... Then lets say that you and others described the exact sound that the leopard made and it was distinctly that of a leopard and not a cat, and everyone claimed that the animal made the same noise.
Does this mean that it DEFINITELY was a leopard? No, of course not, but it just makes the conclusion more complex.
Sometimes when people decide that encounters with God are so infrequent that they must never have ever occurred, they jump at the lowest hanging explanation that supports their conclusion, even when further evidence does not support this conclusion.
If conclusions are based on statistical probability and rejecting observations by utilizing alternate explanations that do not fit the observational evidence and so therefore are NOT based on observational evidence, then it would be impossible to ever conclude that spiritual experiences ever could occur-- mostly because they are rare.
Leopards are rare but that does not mean that they do not exist or that seeing one is impossible.
Sometimes peoples experiences are written off as "elevation" or "heightened emotions".
If someone claims to see one, it is obviously more reasonable to initially conclude options 1 thru 4. Just should also be the case if someone claims to have interacted with God. But if you THOROUGHLY evaluate all of these possibilities and after extensive analysis and evaluating other peoples claims, the evidence truly is pointing to option 5 (they are telling the truth)... maybe its time to open your mind a little bit.
However, the pragmatic (beneficial) utility should be evaluated of the claims and also the claims should be evaluated to see if they are withing the scope of science or outside of the scope of science. If the claims exist within the scope of science, then have they been reasonably disproved? If they have, then the beliefs should likely need to be discarded, or likely at least amended. If they lay outside of the scope of science, then they can never be proved or disproved by science. Evaluate the evidence for them, and see if alternate explanations truly explain them adequately and look to see what the implications of the belief is and whether or not its acceptance is pragmatic.
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