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Question. How can a rational person be theistic and not believe in fairies?

greenfairy

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Being inter-subjective, I can see myself in your eyes and you can see yourself in my eyes.

Babies, for instance, find their sense of self in their mother's eyes. The mother mirrors the self back to the baby.

And our brain has mirror neurons to do just this.
Yes; how is this relevant?
 

Mole

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Yes; how is this relevant?

Good question.

Well, being inter-subjective we assign agency to others.

And assigning agency to others has helped us survive.

And our survival is increased by over assigning agency rather than under assigning agency.

So we over assign agency to natural events and call them gods. And we over assign agency to something caught out of the corner of our eye and call them fairies.

Do you think that is relevant?
 

greenfairy

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Good question.

Well, being inter-subjective we assign agency to others.

And assigning agency to others has helped us survive.

And our survival is increased by over assigning agency rather than under assigning agency.

So we over assign agency to natural events and call them gods. And we over assign agency to something caught out of the corner of our eye and call them fairies.

Do you think that is relevant?

Interesting. Yeah I think that was a lot of it. Of course, I still think they exist. But that's just my opinion.
 

Lark

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Inter-subjectivity is one of the better things to come out of the continued evolution of psycho-analysis and attachment theories.

On the other hand integrating it with an atheistic "I am all and everything" idea is mistaken and another case of seeking rationalisations after the fact when you've already reached decisions about the external world and begun exercising a confirmation bias.

Its mistaken. Although its a mistake of some pedigree given that it dates back as far as Descartes and a great many contemporary theories have it as a half forgotten or unacknowledged foundation and first principle. There are externalities to the human mind, there always have been and always will be, regardless of human comprehension and what they think or feel about them or what legacies have attached to them from time to time. No one thinks about gravitation in this manner for instance.

The thing about atheism is that it could enlist intersubjective theories to illustrate how humans have projected meanings into naturalistic events, such as the wind, good religious thinking has done so too and was the first cause in human kinds wrestling with and defense against superstition. However atheism, objectively, goes one step further. It is not the denial of divine underpinnings to natural catastrophy for instance but the natural catasrophy itself, when no one surely could really deny that the wind blows, rain falls, currents push and pull etc. regardless of our thinking or feeling about them.
 

Coriolis

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On the other hand integrating it with an atheistic "I am all and everything" idea is mistaken and another case of seeking rationalisations after the fact when you've already reached decisions about the external world and begun exercising a confirmation bias.
The more accurate and workable idea is "we are all and everything", with the "we" extending across the span of human generations.
 

Mole

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Interesting. Yeah I think that was a lot of it. Of course, I still think they exist. But that's just my opinion.

I favour tree sprites. And why not, I live in an urban forest and each tree has its own tree sprite. I am carried along each day by 700,000 tree sprites and their attendant creatures from possums to a kingdom of birds, from frilly lizards to a universe of ants. Why, just the other day a tree sprite told me there are more species of ant on Black Mountain in the middle of Canberra than there are in the whole of the United Kingdom.
 

The Great One

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I've seen a fairy before! Really I have! You have to believe me! In fact he even has a profile on this site!
[MENTION=5684]Elfboy[/MENTION]

EDIT: Come on you know that's funny!
 

greenfairy

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I favour tree sprites. And why not, I live in an urban forest and each tree has its own tree sprite. I am carried along each day by 700,000 tree sprites and their attendant creatures from possums to a kingdom of birds, from frilly lizards to a universe of ants. Why, just the other day a tree sprite told me there are more species of ant on Black Mountain in the middle of Canberra than there are in the whole of the United Kingdom.
That's awesome!
I've seen a fairy before! Really I have! You have to believe me! In fact he even has a profile on this site!

[MENTION=5684]Elfboy[/MENTION]

EDIT: Come on you know that's funny!

:D Well he's an elf anyway.
 

Lark

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The more accurate and workable idea is "we are all and everything", with the "we" extending across the span of human generations.

No, not really, my point is that when Copernicus discovered that the earth, and man, were not the centre of the universe he didnt succeed in changing the thinking which underpinned those ideas, even while proclaiming infinesimal importance or meaninglessness thinking for some time has remained mankind centric, perhaps its fated to be so but thankfully denying external cosmological forces like God has not led to simultaneously denying gravitation or anything else like it.
 

Coriolis

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No, not really, my point is that when Copernicus discovered that the earth, and man, were not the centre of the universe he didnt succeed in changing the thinking which underpinned those ideas, even while proclaiming infinesimal importance or meaninglessness thinking for some time has remained mankind centric, perhaps its fated to be so but thankfully denying external cosmological forces like God has not led to simultaneously denying gravitation or anything else like it.
Again, I'm not understanding you. I was contrasting a focus on the individual with a focus on humanity as a whole, vs a focus on deity. I understand what you are saying about Copernicus and largely agree, but what do you mean by infinitesmal importance, or meaningless thinking, and what has this to do with God vs. gravity?
 
S

Society

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Why do you believe in an immaterial nonphysical God-being, which can't be observed through scientific investigation, but you dismiss the idea of (mostly) immaterial, (mostly) nonphysical nature spirits called fairies which can't be observed through scientific investigation?

my understanding of the psychology behind belief is that its not merely enough to make an agnostic conclusion that "it could be", but rather a positive conclusion that "it must be", that it is somehow necessary for the belief to be true.

for that to happen, it has to explain something that doesn't make sense to that person otherwise, it has to delve into what the believer would experience as the great unknown, and somehow resolve it.

fairies represent a mental set where the realm of the unknown was much intimate, where the growth patterns in nature didn't make much sense, where people dead in the forest didn't make much sense, where natural abortions didn't make much sense (though that was usually elves).

theism pushed the line much further - existence itself, mortality, morality, etc'. making sense of questions that for many still don't make much sense, still in the realm of the unknown. its that very intrinsic minimalism in the essence of what made it survive so long and flourish even under sociological stress.

this is why - while both might gain the same agnostic approval of "they can be" - theism maintains the strength of the positive psychological approval that the belief in fairies has since lost.
 

greenfairy

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my understanding of the psychology behind belief is that its not merely enough to make an agnostic conclusion that "it could be", but rather a positive conclusion that "it must be", that it is somehow necessary for the belief to be true.

for that to happen, it has to explain something that doesn't make sense to that person otherwise, it has to delve into what the believer would experience as the great unknown, and somehow resolve it.

fairies represent a mental set where the realm of the unknown was much intimate, where the growth patterns in nature didn't make much sense, where people dead in the forest didn't make much sense, where natural abortions didn't make much sense (though that was usually elves).

theism pushed the line much further - existence itself, mortality, morality, etc'. making sense of questions that for many still don't make much sense, still in the realm of the unknown. its that very intrinsic minimalism in the essence of what made it survive so long and flourish even under sociological stress.

this is why - while both might gain the same agnostic approval of "they can be" - theism maintains the strength of the positive psychological approval that the belief in fairies has since lost.

That makes sense, but remember that when fairy belief was popular people were polytheistic. They didn't simply believe in a one god to solve the ultimate mysteries; gods were personalities and archetypes, and represented elements of nature and human nature. Fairies weren't simply an explanation either, they were nature spirits which existed in a not-so-physical realm. They were like animals and humans, just mostly invisible. The attributing of explanatory status to them occurred mostly after Christianity, when the old beliefs were trivialized into "fairy tales." They were beings which coexisted with humans. Gods were thought of in much the same way, but with additional powers. I agree that people believe in God now because they need an explanation- in a lot of ways theism (among educated people) has become intellectualized and de-anthropomorphized.
 
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That makes sense, but remember that when fairy belief was popular people were polytheistic. They didn't simply believe in a one god to solve the ultimate mysteries; gods were personalities and archetypes, and represented elements of nature and human nature. Fairies weren't simply an explanation either, they were nature spirits which existed in a not-so-physical realm. They were like animals and humans, just mostly invisible. The attributing of explanatory status to them occurred mostly after Christianity, when the old beliefs were trivialized into "fairy tales." They were beings which coexisted with humans. Gods were thought of in much the same way, but with additional powers. I agree that people believe in God now because they need an explanation- in a lot of ways theism (among educated people) has become intellectualized and de-anthropomorphized.

interesting, though when i imagine the storytellers of the time tell these stories around the campfire, i tend to think polytheistic faiths served mankind better as explanations to various phenomena, since it's basically metaphors taking a life of their own straight from the tribal life that people knew. i wouldn't be surprised if the original characters stemmed from an already existing ancestral-worship tapestry of faith prior.
another possible source was cross cultural encounters: it's being suggested that the Minoens brought on the story of the centaurs. is it that unlikely that nature worshiping and wood dwelling cults/tribes brought on the belief of fae?
 

greenfairy

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interesting, though when i imagine the storytellers of the time tell these stories around the campfire, i tend to think polytheistic faiths served mankind better as explanations to various phenomena, since it's basically metaphors taking a life of their own straight from the tribal life that people knew. i wouldn't be surprised if the original characters stemmed from an already existing ancestral-worship tapestry of faith prior.
another possible source was cross cultural encounters: it's being suggested that the Minoens brought on the story of the centaurs. is it that unlikely that nature worshiping and wood dwelling cults/tribes brought on the belief of fae?

I'm sure that was at least part of it; in Ireland supposedly it came partly from a race of native people who were tiny and lived in hills (but who really knows). It's like a chicken or egg thing I guess.
 
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I'm sure that was at least part of it; in Ireland supposedly it came partly from a race of native people who were tiny and lived in hills (but who really knows). It's like a chicken or egg thing I guess.

right, so the question isn't where it comes from, but what sustained the belief once it was there. that's what i was trying to get at earlier.
 

greenfairy

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right, so the question isn't where it comes from, but what sustained the belief once it was there. that's what i was trying to get at earlier.

Ah.
 
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