Have you ever had a real experience you consider to be supernatural?

[beancounter]

I have seen a lot of people reverse theological belief or non-belief in a philosophy class by being exposed to all the arguments for an against something. People who believed in God, no longer doing so, people who didn't believe in God, believing in God (or becoming more theistic). I think people are a lot more likely to change their mind if the arguments are simply presented in that way (what I think people resist is the sense that someone is asking them to join in their way of thinking).

I'm not so sure of that. Belief is often tied to feelings of tradition, belonging, fear, peer pressure, etc. In addition, these are concepts that people are introduced to at a formative age, resulting in such beliefs being "hard coded" into their world view. A well reasoned argument is unlikely to change a persons religious belief (or lack thereof).

I'm talking in vague generalities here, because going deeper is bound to get people upset. As the saying goes, avoid talking about religion, politics and UFOs.

 

[Sanguinarious]

A person can change their belief, at least I have on occasion.

A long time ago I accepted the common belief that mother Teresa was a 'saint', as in a good person. I wanted to believe in good people, really.

Well I heard a man on an interview once say she was a ''bat from hell'' and promptly flipped the channel . How Dare he say that about such a kind women?!?!

Well years later I found out that man was Chris Hitchens and I listened to him afterwards because I was not a Christian and more of an agnostic, but still wanted to believe in good people.

Hitchens slowly laid out his case that mother Teresa was in fact a horrible person who caused vast amounts of suffering and didn't really abate any, just moved it out of sight.

As I listened I began to think he might be onto something, and did my own research. What I found made me change ny mind about the legend of mother Teresa, and realize he was right, she was a 'bat from hell'. Plus a hypocrite of the first order too.

So yes some people can change my mind sometimes.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The only real unexplained thing was when I was a kid. We were living in our old farmhouse and my brother and one of his friends and I were watching TV. MTV, to be exact, when they played music (that alone is a unique circumstance lol). We were in the kitchen but we could see the TV. Suddenly it began to change channels. Went through six or seven of them (out of 10 that we had, if I recall correctly). Eventually it went back to MTV.

Doesn't sound like anything weird, right? Remember, this is back when they played music, so 1985 or so. The TVs back then didn't have fancy remotes. It was a manual dial you had to turn. And the dial did turn. Anyone with those TVs knows they didn't turn easily either.

 

[Umbran]

I have been to acupuncture and found it effective. At least where I went, and the person was trained in China, they also prescribed traditional chinese medicine too. I've also found massage that is based on concepts of Qi flow helpful.

To understand this we have to remember how traditional medical practices are formed - they are the product of centuries of trial and error, adopting techniques that seemed to work, and then rationalizing those techniques in terms of the traditional terminology, and sometimes adjusting the terminology to include the techniques.

So, if someone finds that an tea made from willow bark helps with headaches, then of course we keep using that tea - and we rationalize an explanation for why it works.

The problems with the results are twofold -
1) Practitioners of centuries ago didn't have statistics. They adopted practices at best based on anecdote, so sometimes the effectiveness isn't really there.
2) the conceptual framework is generally retrofitted as rationalization, and so isn't terribly predictive. When faced with a new problem, or one the framework doesn't usually handle, it can fail to offer effective treatment.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not so sure of that. Belief is often tied to feelings of tradition, belonging, fear, peer pressure, etc. In addition, these are concepts that people are introduced to at a formative age, resulting in such beliefs being "hard coded" into their world view.

I might be able to clarify this a bit - a great deal of what we think of as belief is connected to the person's identity. Questioning a deeply held belief analogous to questioning who you are. Changing those beliefs is essentially willfully changing who you are as a person.

People can change who they are. But it it very hard to do. And no, it won't generally be accomplished by one well-stated factual argument. That argument has to be at the end of a chain of other things that make the person ready to accept that change.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I might be able to clarify this a bit - a great deal of what we think of as belief is connected to the person's identity. Questioning a deeply held belief analogous to questioning who you are. Changing those beliefs is essentially willfully changing who you are as a person.

People can change who they are. But it it very hard to do. And no, it won't generally be accomplished by one well-stated factual argument. That argument has to be at the end of a chain of other things that make the person ready to accept that change.

And keep in mind what I was talking about was not a teacher presenting a student with one argument for why they should change their mind. Rather this is about presenting a topic and presenting the full arguments for both (or several) positions on that topic, such as arguments for and against God (with those arguments both being steal manned). And it isn't about trying to turn theists into atheists or atheists into theists, it is about exposing people to the arguments, to principles of logic, and allowing them to form their conclusions from that. There is also plenty of space there for students to formulate their own arguments, and have those arguments subject to criticism. I think approaches like this are more likely to work than telling someone why they need to change their position, because, to your point, it isn't an assault on their sense of identity. They can take those arguments to reinforce their identity if they choose. But they can also be persuaded to other points of view.

And obviously this is a self selecting group. People who sign up to be philosophy majors or minors, or who seek out books where they can read these arguments, are probably interested in ideas and open to changing their perspective. But I saw plenty of people in these courses change their minds not just on whether they believed God existed or not but on hotly contested social and cultural issues (often times they were surprised where they fell once they saw steal manned arguments they hadn't encountered before).

 

[Bedrockgames]

To understand this we have to remember how traditional medical practices are formed - they are the product of centuries of trial and error, adopting techniques that seemed to work, and then rationalizing those techniques in terms of the traditional terminology, and sometimes adjusting the terminology to include the techniques.

So, if someone finds that an tea made from willow bark helps with headaches, then of course we keep using that tea - and we rationalize an explanation for why it works.

The problems with the results are twofold -
1) Practitioners of centuries ago didn't have statistics. They adopted practices at best based on anecdote, so sometimes the effectiveness isn't really there.
2) the conceptual framework is generally retrofitted as rationalization, and so isn't terribly predictive. When faced with a new problem, or one the framework doesn't usually handle, it can fail to offer effective treatment.

I'm pretty agnostic on this front. My point was more this is what has appeared to work for me, and I would be reluctant to dismiss the concepts behind something like that which works (especially when you consider the lineage of an idea like Qi and how it is often interpreted in a wide variety of ways). But ultimately it working is what has persuaded (I had similar experiences learning medication at a Buddhist temple where I lived, where I found a lot of what I was taught and learned to be genuinely effective). But then I am also generally open minded towards spiritual and supernatural explanations of things.

In terms of ancient stats, I have no idea, but one thing I will say about Chinese Medicine and History is I am continuously surprised by how advanced their institutions, technology, records and bureaucracy were hundreds, even thousands of years ago. I don't know whether they kept something like modern statistics, but it wouldn't surprise me if there is more data than people might expect. They had pretty advanced printing technology well before Europe for example (they were using moveable type I think by 1000 BCE) and the government kept all kinds of data. But I know nothing about the history of Chinese medicine so I can't say one way or another (just that I'd go in with very few preconceptions if I were intending to learn more about the issue). I'd be very cautious about applying a broad and general narrative of traditional medicines to a specific case like this.

 

[Fifth Element]

I'm not so sure of that.

It's absolutely true that people can change an irrationally-held belief when presented with evidence. So it is possible to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, which means the platitude is incorrect, which was the point. It won't always work, not nearly always, but it can and does work at times.

 

[FrogReaver]

I once got home from school. I must have been in 6th or 7th grade at the time. We lived in a single wide trailer out in the country on my papaws farm. It was sunny, not too hot or cold outside and very windy. I was home alone as usual as my mother didn’t get home for a couple of hours. Not long after I went inside what I can only describe as loud eerie organ music began to sound throughout the whole home. I was so scared I went outside and stayed on the porch till she get home. Perhaps it was the wind? But it never did anything like that before or since.

 

[Fifth Element]

Hitchens slowly laid out his case that mother Teresa was in fact a horrible person who caused vast amounts of suffering and didn't really abate any, just moved it out of sight.

She said that suffering was good for them. But only them, of course, while she flew around the world obtaining the best medical care money could buy for herself.