Prismatic talks about ‘proof’ not understanding that proof is either legal or mathematical/symbolic logic, but has little to do with any complex phenomenon like the source of beliefs. And legal proof is a very contingent - depends on the laws, customs and particular jury or judge - whereas mathematics and symbolic logic do not have, for example, empirical and semantic issues. So right off the bat when he uses proof, we should be wary that we are dealing with certitude based on confusion. This doesn’t mean his argument is wrong, it just means that he doesn’t understand the frame his argument is in and since he refers to it as proof, then he is confused in his certainty.
That said, he also confused correlation and cause. It’s a complicated counterargument, but basically since we fear death and religions offer, potentially, a pleasant solution to this fear - this fear causes the belief in God, all the other testimony by religious people be damned. A so far correlation being taken as cause. There are also religions that have no very pleasant afterlives, sometimes as one possibility, sometimes as the only one. And there are many people who believe and are terrified of that afterlife, at least for them. There are also religions where the person does not continue, where there is a return to God or Self or Vishnu or whatever. Most people have fears that come up around intimacy, let alone dissolving into a greater whole permanently, and anyone with a knowledge of, say, certain traditions in Hinduism, know that the practitioner has to deal with tremendous fear to achieve the before death goals in the religion where there is union with (fill in the blank). Why people would put so much effort into trying to do something so terrifying before death if fear is the motivator for belief, I don’t know. And then there are whole swathes of scary religions, where being god fearing is the experience. Or ones with no afterlife.
He is also spitting in the face - by mind reading claims - of all the people who would disagree based on their experiences, not just religious ones, for why they believe, the role of religion in their lives and what their belief is based on. Both theists and atheists can agree, especially on philosophy forums, that the issue around belief is either faith or some kind of logical or illogical argument. Whereas, in fact, most belief has a huge empirical component. Whether one has grown up in the religion or one has converted or come to it later. These empirical facets can be anything from what they experience in prayer, contemplation, rituals, meditation, in meetings with religious experts - gurus priests, whomever - to the experienced effects of the practices on their lives to mundane, non-controversial affects of participating in what are often highly social practices to visionary experiences in shamanistic practices or other religious practices - experiences that are often predicatable and come in certain sequences - to quite a bit else. IOW the beliefs are based on a wide range of experiences and experiences in the context of practices led or taught by experts and more.
He feels that on paper he can prove, yes prove, that they are all wrong about the source of their beliefs-
What I notice is that atheists I know don’t seem to be very afraid of death - in fact their emotions often seem dampened in general. Even those who leave religions do not seem to me to be facing fear - except their fear that they might go to hell now. I haven’t heard of this huge guantlet of fear that atheists go through converting from theism to atheism.
And in fact it seems like atheists don’t fear death more then very religious people.
newsweek.com/fear-death-ath … ers-575496
There is even evidence that religious people are more afraid of death…
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7949111.stm
Me, I think there are a lot of factors involved, but I see no reason to accept Prismatic’s universal mind reading claims, especially since he seems to think he even could present a proof and also his weak grasp of correlation cause, and last because I found him, despite his claims otherwise, to be closed to any criticism.
If you enjoy the dialogue, great.