Learn To Be Psychic In Ten Easy Lessons

From Skeptic Magazines website you can download the document for fun, games, sabotaging "psychic readings" and future reference.
Excerpt from the documents introduction follows below.

Psychic readings and fortunetelling are an ancient art—acombination of acting and psychological manipulation.
....
With only 24 hours to master palm readings, tarot cardreadings, astrological readings, and even talking to thedead, [Michael] Shermer had no problem convincing subjectsthat he had never met that he was psychic. The factthat he could perform reasonably well with only one dayof preparation shows just how vulnerable people are tothese very effective psychological manipulations.

When I was kid, I loved to play with "Magic Tricks" though the tricks were easy to understand and learn, the props were hard to master and expensive. Mental Magic doesn't require any physical dexterity, its cheap and just as easy to understand and learn. I own "Practical Mental Magic" by Theodore Annemann. Here is link to other similar books from Amazon. One of the books is not about mentalism but about acting. The term "cold reading" is a term used both to describe the "psychic" reading and as a term actors use to for when they read a script without rehearsal as in an audition. Those not familiar with the difference might get them confused.

Theist Equivocation Of "Grace" Used in Combination With The Strategy of Minimization In Dialog.

Equivocate, from Dictionary.com

–verb (used without object), -cat⋅ed, -cat⋅ing.
to use ambiguous or unclear expressions, usually to avoid commitment or in order to mislead; prevaricate or hedge: When asked directly for his position on disarmament, the candidate only equivocated.

A Christian rejoinder at Debunking Christianity
Over at Debunking Christianity, I was making a comparison between the behavior of God and an irresponsible father in the myth of Adam and Eve like so

Twilight Z. Clown wrote: "He's the kind of dad that leaves matches laying around and tells the kid not to play with them, knowing full well they're going to play with them, and he's going to have to punish them."

As I write this I'd add "and critically injure themselves" if I could do it over again.

And my Christian counterpart answered as follows

Keep in mind that the OT writings are without the benefit of Jesus's example of spiritual salvation - so while God's grace allows a well loved enemy to infect the world with danger, God knowing this provides for salvation, not punishment. It is we who are drawn to the temptation to punish and condemn that which we do not love. Link

I ended with something like the following.
"Grace enough to let a well loved enemy infect the world with danger? That's incoherent".

It is incoherent because in this sense "Grace" is either a pardon for some previous act, or in its broadest sense, it is the freely given love of God. But if we go with the most general form, in the theologcial sense, we come up against the defintion of "Love".  Not to mention that fact that she totally ignored the bad consequences of disobeying god in an attempt to minimize the scope of the problem.

So in the sense that the Christian was using it, what we have is
"Gods freely given love permits a well loved enemy to infect the world with danger."

But what about the well loved non-enemies that are the victims of the well loved enemy? Then this must be an equivocation of Love because if I were to forgive a molesting relative and to extend my Grace to permit them to keep molesting my child, is that love or Grace?

No, its a blatant INCOHERENT equivocation, and it is a common strategy used by religious people in combination with "minimization" to try to answer for how a loving God could permit the continuance of unrestricted victimization that goes on in the world.

Now I came back and asked her what she meant by Grace, and she only used it as an example of why I don't understand. It was an evasive speech act. She was avoiding defining in what sense she was using the word.

Below is the complete definition of "Grace" from Dictionary.com. Its not authoritative of course, but its enough to see that the way religious people use the word "Grace" is incoherent.

Grace

–noun
1. elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.

2. a pleasing or attractive quality or endowment.

3. favor or good will.

4. a manifestation of favor, esp. by a superior: It was only through the dean's grace that I wasn't expelled from school.

5. mercy; clemency; pardon: an act of grace.

6. favor shown in granting a delay or temporary immunity.

7. an allowance of time after a debt or bill has become payable granted to the debtor before suit can be brought against him or her or a penalty applied: The life insurance premium is due today, but we have 31 days' grace before the policy lapses. Compare grace period.

8. Theology.
a. the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.

b. the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.

c. a virtue or excellence of divine origin: the Christian graces.

d. Also called state of grace. the condition of being in God's favor or one of the elect.


9. moral strength: the grace to perform a duty.

10. a short prayer before or after a meal, in which a blessing is asked and thanks are given.

11. (usually initial capital letter) a formal title used in addressing or mentioning a duke, duchess, or archbishop, and formerly also a sovereign (usually prec. by your, his, etc.).

12. Graces, Classical Mythology. the goddesses of beauty, daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, worshiped in Greece as the Charities and in Rome as the Gratiae.

13. Music. grace note.

–verb (used with object)
14. to lend or add grace to; adorn: Many fine paintings graced the rooms of the house.

15. to favor or honor: to grace an occasion with one's presence.
—Idioms
16. fall from grace,
a. Theology. to relapse into sin or disfavor.

b. to lose favor; be discredited: He fell from grace when the boss found out he had lied.


17. have the grace to, to be so kind as to: Would you have the grace to help, please?

18. in someone's good (or bad) graces, regarded with favor (or disfavor) by someone: It is a wonder that I have managed to stay in her good graces this long.

19. with bad grace, reluctantly; grudgingly: He apologized, but did so with bad grace. Also, with a bad grace.

20. with good grace, willingly; ungrudgingly: She took on the extra work with good grace.

Resources

40% Of Scientists Have A Belief In A God? Okay, Which God?

If a believer says that "it is not unreasonable to believe there is intelligence behind our natural laws"
then they should agree that there must be an intelligence behind the intelligence of our natural laws. But isn't that absurd? Its got to stop somewhere, so why don't we stop before we get to Gods.  There is obviously no way to prove which God it is if they are not going to present themselves, so we might as well say, there is no God. If we ask a God to present itself unambiguously to us and it doesn't, isn't that exactly what we would expect if there really wasn't any God? What difference does a God that does not interact make anyway?

Committing to a hasty conclusion does not make one stupid.
I have read that 40% of American Scientists believe in God. It doesn't make them stupid or ignorant, it just means they've come to a hasty conclusion.

Stephen Jay Gould is reported to have said

"Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs"

That is a fallacy. It is a false dilemma. Did Gould mention WHICH religious beliefs? The contra to that are that his peers are not stupid and religious cosmogonies are not compatible with evolution. Potentially, Gould has an 80% chance of believing in the wrong god among his peers that believe in a god when you consider the following.

I think the reported 40% is a little high, but I'll go with it. It depends on how the question is asked, and which god it is that they believe in.

I'm sure that some percentage of Hindu scientists believe in a Hindu God, some percentage of Christian scientists believe in a christian god and so on and so on.

So of that 40 percent, break it down by religion, and it must be divided by the number of faiths, so if there are 5 equally distributed competing faiths in that forty percent, then only 8% are right if a god exists.

So how can the remaining 32% of believing scientists be wrong if they are so smart and a god exists?
Potentially, that is 80% of the pool of 40%, and overall 92% of scientists that don't believe in the RIGHT god or any god at all.

The 32% of believing scientists have OBVIOUSLY come to a hasty conclusion haven't they?

Smart people are not immune from social and political pressure or their natural bias to confuse complexity with intelligence.

It just shows that they haven't thought about it critically enough to catch up with their unbelieving peers that make up the majority or they have determined that if it doesn't make a difference, then they are better off lying about their belief, or the survey question or results were misinterpreted.

"Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies

While acknowledging that Jesus' usage of the term "son of man" has no consensus, this article shows how the term "son of man" was historically used to refer to mankind or Humans as a category, was never generally considered by the Jewish community to be a descriptive phrase for the Messiah, and therefore seems to be used incorrectly either by Jesus, by the authors and/or translators of the gospels as something like a personal pronoun for Jesus. In any case, presuming the Bible is the Word of God, the term still maps to two real world states fulfilling the criteria for Ambiguous Representation which is an Information and Data Quality (IDQ) design flaw.


This Article is part six of the series of articles applying Information and Data Quality (IDQ) Principles to the Bible. The purpose of the series is to show that the Bible is not a reliable or trustworthy source of information about God because it has problems identified in Information and Data Quality research as causing inaccuracy and unreliability. Links to the previous articles are listed below.

1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies

A brief review of Ambiguous Representation and Mapping to a Meaningless State(1) follows.

Ambiguous representation
While it is permissible to use to a multiple datum to represent one real world state, it is not permissible to use one datum to represent two real world states. If multiple Real World states are represented by one datum there is not enough information with which to accurately represent either Real World state. This situation is called "Ambiguity". It is similar to incomplete representation because it can be considered an instance of missing information, even though one datum could incompletely represent two instances of a Real World state because it is not specific enough. It is analogous to using the term "she" in a conversation when discussing an event concerning multiple women. By not specifying which "she" is being referenced, the details of the event become unclear because the "she" being referred to is ambiguous.

Figure 1 illustrates this point by showing three instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and two instances of Data in the D column. One instance of a Real World state is not represented by the Data in column D but instead, two instances of Real World states are represented by one instance of an information state.

Figure 1


Operation Deficiencies - Garbling: Map to a wrong state
In human terms, garbling occurs at the point of "consumption" or reading and interpretation. In Information Systems, it occurs at operation time or when the database is being accessed. Garbling occurs when a Real World state is incorrectly mapped to a wrong state in the Information System. Figure 2 illustrates this phenomena by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state and a Real World state in incorrectly interpreted as being represented by a valid however incorrect or unintended information state.

Figure 2


The son of man
In Hebrew, son of man can be used, generally speaking, as the word "Human". It originated in ancient Mesopotamia and was used to denote humanity or mankind in general especially when distinguishing between mankind and God (2, 3). In the Old Testament, "son of man" was used as the word "Human" would be used today. When the word "Human" is used to replace the phrase "son of man" in the Old Testament, the context retains its meaning. A list of instances where "son of man" appears in the Old Testament follows.

Old Testament instances
Numbers
-23:19
Job
- 16:18-21
- 25
- 35:6-8
Psalms
- 8
- 80
- 144
- 146
Isaiah
- 51:11-13
- 56:1-2
Ezekiel
- 2:1 - 47:6, used 97 times
Daniel
- 7:13-14
- 8:16-18

In Numbers, "son of man" is used to contrast God with Humanity showing how he is different using the example that he is above lying or repentance.

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie, Nor a son of man, that he should repent: Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?

In Ezekiel, the author is addressed as "son of man" in the context of addressing him by his type of being, emphasizing the difference between the author and God.

Ezekiel 2:1-10
1 He said to me, son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.
2 The Spirit entered into me when he spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard him who spoke to me.
3 He said to me, son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to nations that are rebellious, which have rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me even to this very day.
.....

When the Book of Daniel was written the term turned up in chapter 7 verse 13. This instance of usage is believed by some to be a reference to the Messiah, and still it is consistent with the historical and cultural usage of the term. It is a reference to a being "like a son of man" which is believed, in Judaism and depending on the interpretation, to be either an Angel or a representation of the Messiah as a Human being. In either case though, it clearly is metaphorical and is not necessarily a reference to one single person that will get dominion forever because further on in verses 18 and 27, the text clearly states that "the Saints" and "the people of the Saints" (Plural) will have dominion. This is interpreted by some to mean the people of Israel will have everlasting dominion and that the human figure was representing a group.

Below are the relevant verses from Daniel discussing the "being like a son of man" and the plurality of who are going to get Dominion. I highly recommend that the reader look up the whole passage and read it in its entirety, in context. "Ancient of Days" is accepted as a reference to God in one of his constantly changing mystical anthropomorphic states.

Daniel 7:13-8:17
13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of days, and he was brought near before Him.
14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
...
18 But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.'
...
22 until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High; and the time came, and the saints possessed the kingdom.
...
27 And the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them.'

Daniel 8:17
17 So he came near to where I was standing, and when he came I was frightened and fell on my face; but he said to me, "son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end."

There is consistent usage of the term "son of man" within Daniel 7 and 8, and its usage denotes a type of Human being. In verse 8, the author is referred to as "son of man". While most Jews don't seem to generally consider 7:13 a Messianic prophesy, some do, however they do not consider "son of man" a specific title for the Messiah as Christians do or as the authors of the Gospels had Jesus use it. Most Jewish Scholars don't think it likely that Jesus would have used the Aramaic term in that way because in Aramaic it never had that meaning(3). In other words, it never mapped to the Messiah as a Real World state, it only ever mapped to the category of Human.

And though it is written that Jesus used the term to describe himself, it is not clear that he considered himself God or the Messiah. For example, in Mark 8:27-31, and John 7:26-31, Jesus has the opportunity to say clearly and unequivocally that he is the Messiah, the Christ and God on Earth, but he doesn't. Numbers 23:19 says that God is not a man that he should lie, nor like a son of man that he should repent. There is a distinction between humans and God, one characteristic of that distinction is that he would not lie. A lie is hard to define so its hard to defend a claim that Jesus was lying, however, a lie does fall into the category of deception so if nothing else, Jesus was deceptive, which is considered to be a characteristic of Satan and Humans but not of God.

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie, Nor a son of man, that he should repent: Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?

Here the gospels have Jesus using the term "son of man" incorrectly and using a deceptive rhetorical persuasion technique just as Numbers said God wouldn't. Here he uses the bandwagon fallacy because who the people say he is is not relevant to who he really is, and he uses an improper appeal to authority because since the disciples have never seen a God on earth, and since they have not attempted to distinguish between Jesus and a Con Man, they are not qualified to assess. Jesus uses a rhetorical persuasion technique where he gets the "mark" to verbalize a commitment which increases the likelihood that they will defend the commitment even against disconfirming evidence and then he told them not to tell anyone which insulates them from having to defend their commitment because it decreases the amount of instances where a defense will be needed.

Mark 8:27 - 31
27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?"
28 They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets."
29 And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ."
30 And He warned them to tell no one about Him.
31 And He began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

According to the Authors of the Gospels, when Jesus starting using the phrase "son of man", he was using it as personal pronoun to describe himself. If anyone who heard Jesus use this term in this way challenged it or asked for clarification, it is not recorded. There is no explanation of why Jesus changed the meaning of this phrase, presuming he had the authority to do so. But presuming he had the authority to do it, a sound general principle is that "if something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done". To maintain coherence over time and to explain to knowledgeable Jews who would not be able to have contact with Jesus, an explanation of the new use of the word was warranted. As it stands now it looks like Jesus didn't understand what the term meant or he was intentionally using it in an ambiguous way or that the authors and or translators of the Gospels didn't understand how the term should be used which is one reason why there is no consensus on Jesus' usage of it to this day.

Since Jesus was supposed to be God, then the Old Testament was Jesus' Word, and he used the phrase "son of man" in the Old Testament in the traditional way and he validated the authority of the Old Testament as the Word of God by using it as a reference for his teaching (5), he is not likely to have used the phrase "son of man" in that way because it is a new mapping to a real world state creating ambiguity.

It looks like the the phrase "son of man" was misunderstood by Jesus or the original authors (or translators) of Gospel resulting in a mapping to a wrong state, or a meaningless state depending on the perspective of the critic. In any case, if Jesus was god, then referring to himself using a term which he re-defined but did not explain is deliberately ambiguous and confusing. Since it is irrational for a teacher to teach and communicate to her students using ambiguous terms and deception, it follows that it would be irrational for God to do so as well, therefore the ambiguous use of the term "son of man" was an IDQ design deficiency of Ambiguous Representation in the origin of the text.

References and Further Reading
1. Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
2. Wikipedia, son of man
3. JewishEncyclopedia, son of man
4. Mechon Mamre
5. How Accurate is the Bible?

Solomon Asch Conformity Experiments

Watch YouTube Video
This article is intended to show how people will conform to peer pressure against their own convictions and in what conditions. It is relevant to the influence exerted in the church community among its members. There is significant pressure in the church to prevent the expression of doubt or critical questioning of the properties of the religion. People would rather conform than go against the group. Since people are evolutionarily tuned to be social animals, the perceived benefit of belonging to the group should outweigh the benefit of dissension. I am grateful to Matthew, one of our readers, for submitting this and his kind sentiment. Click on the Link above to show a short video documentary on them. Click on the Link below to read a short summary from Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia
Solomon Asch "became famous in the 1950s, following experiments which showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect.

The way he did this was through an experiment in which participants were shown a card with a line on it, followed by another card with 3 lines on it labeled a, b, and c. The participants were then asked to say which line matched the line on the first card. At first, the subject would feel very at ease in the experiment, as he and the other participants gave the obvious answer. Shortly after, the "participants" in front of the subject would start all giving the same wrong answer. Solomon Asch thought that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong, but the results showed that an alarming number of participants gave the wrong answer. See Asch Conformity Experiments"

REFERENCES

Debunking Christianity
The Role of Persuasion and Cognitive Bias In Your Church
The Role of Persuasion in the Question of The Holy Spirit
Suspension of Disbelief
All Lee's Persuasion Articles

Wikipedia
Solomon Asch
Asch Conformity Experiments

YouTube
Asch Conformity Experiments Video from YouTube

Negativity Is Contagious, Study Finds

This is relevant to the role of persuasion and influence in the church community as an impediment to free-will.
This study supports other studies where people are influenced by the group to change their opinion.
In this study researches found that they could predictively influence the opinions of subjects by showing them information about the opinions of their peers. It is so effective that it could be used in marketing by competitors by going online and trash talking a product to influence consumers against it.
Sciencedaily.com

REFERENCE
Sciencdaily.com: Mind and Brain

The Role of Persuasion and Cognitive Bias in Your Church

This article discusses one of my typical Sundays at church and identifies elements of Principles of Persuasion and Cognitive Bias in it. It is intended to show that Religious Belief is induced and supported by common psychological devices of principles of persuasion and cognitive bias of the type that are used in Politics, Advertising and Marketing. The discussion of Politics, Advertising and Marketing is kept to a minimum because I believe that in those categories, the devices are self-evident. Any book on critical thinking will discuss the use of principles of persuasion in Politics, Advertising and Marketing but will skirt the issue with regard to Religion. To sustain a belief in something for which no evidence exists requires some type of reinforcement. These principles provide reinforcement. They can get you through your "Dark Night of the Soul".

As I moved around I chose my churches carefully. I picked a church that was closest to the kind I grew up with, the kind where the preacher said the kind of things I was used to hearing, and where the people believed the same way I did. I'd get up early on Sunday, eager to get to Bible Study (before I started teaching it). It was the same story I'd heard a hundred times before, but I was hearing it from someone else's perspective. The service followed and I led the singing. I'd stand up there waiting for the preachers cue as he told his formally educated version of a story I'd heard a hundred times before. He would speak with a range of emotion and used powerful imagery. People would be injecting the random "Amen" here and there as he made his points. Then the preacher would give me the cue and we'd sing the same songs we'd been singing in previous years, and people would be waving their hands in the air. Singing those songs loud and strong evoked such good feelings. We'd stop and bow our heads together and the preacher would lead us in a prayer.

He was always dressed professionally and had good hair cut. He was the nicest most likable guy you'd ever want to meet. He was so un-intimidating, so comforting. In fact everyone looked nice (some dressed to kill) and most were a pillar in the community.

We had a stained glass window, pictures of bible stories all over the church and a big Jesus on the cross. After the service we'd get together and talk about things such as how blessed we were. When we talked about things, there was a lot of speculation as we tried to understand how this or that must have come about. I guess you could say it was a little like gossip. That was fellowship, and fellowship was a very important part of the church experience. I miss it now. I always marveled at the loyalty, faith and sacrifice of my fellow church members. The lady that played the piano never stopped serving the community and was an inspiration to me. I wanted that kind of faith, and I strove to get it.

I am assuming my experience was typical of the average protestant Sunday. It was filled with elements of persuasion to keep the faith alive with a lack of evidence. Lets see how many elements of persuasion we can identify in the story above.

First, lets see what "factors of persuasion" and "Cognitive Bias" are. Some of them are in the list that follows.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses". People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People are more likely to believe a story that is accompanied by symbols or imagery to include music.
- People will come to believe what they hear the more it is repeated to them.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.
- People fill in the gaps in information naturally. We fill in the missing details in stories, with the blind spot in the eye, movies, music etc.

So now, how does the list above relate to the story above it? I'm sure better examples can be found but this is the best I could do with the time I had.

- When thinking about prayer, they focus on the prayer that was answered rather than un-answered. There are more un-answered prayers than answered. (People "remember the hits and forget the misses”. People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.)

- Attributing coincidences to Divine Manipulation, for example, a woman in the news who was convinced that she was spared by God when a racing car went into the crowd and killed the people next to her. (People are naturally terrible at estimating probability)

- Jesus supposedly taught in parables and people make up analogies to explain religious concepts and scripture. When hearing a story that would normally be hard to believe, in the context of a sermon or being told by a fellow church member, the estimation of the likelihood of exaggeration is low. (People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.)

- People don't expect that people they like, especially Christians, would lie to them. People don't suspect the story is being exaggerated. One reason is the belief that the teller is accountable to God and God knows everything. (People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.)

- People don't expect their religious leader to try to lie to them or exaggerate. (People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.)

- When the preacher tells a story or uses an analogy, its going to fit what the listeners already believe. The Preacher wouldn’t use it if it didn’t. (People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.)

- People are likely to believe that all these people can’t be wrong and since the belief has survived thousands of years, it is not likely to be false. The bandwagon fallacy. They assume they must be mistaken. Especially since it is a tenant of Christianity to blame people in any case there is a conflict with doctrine. (People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.)

- Christianity relies on powerful imagery. Politicians and the Advertising and Marketing industry rely heavily on this as well. In the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion, the use of emotive language and imagery in general (known as the peripheral route in the ELM) is the easiest to use to persuade people. (People are more likely to believe a story that is accompanied by symbols or imagery to include music. )

- After a while, since it is repeated to you so much, you know the bible by heart. Think "sound bite". WWJD. (People will come to believe what they hear the more it is repeated to them.)

- If people start to question their beliefs, they are likely to believe they must be wrong. If they perceive things that contradict the bible, they will bend over backwards to reconcile it in their minds to mitigate the cognitive dissonance that results. This is called self-justification. (People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.)

- People are more likely to believe that other members of the church are more devout than they are. (People overestimate the degree of belief in others.)

- If the preacher started to preach from the perspective of another denomination it would make them uncomfortable. For example, Protestants would disregard a lot of what a Catholic priest taught. In another example, think about all those religious leaders that have been found genuinely guilty of abuse but are being defended by their congregation and the Church. They don’t want to believe the religious leader is guilty. (People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.)

- The Bible has a cryptic warning about the unforgivable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Talk about a conversation killer. Be careful what you say about God. Make sure you do the right thing and get baptized and such so you can get into heaven. Why else would you believe the events in the bible except to avoid going to hell? Because you love God? How can you love something you can't comprehend, or touch, or see or hear? Precautionary principle, Cognitive Bias and Principles of Persuasion. (People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.)

- In relaying stories that support belief or creating analogies to help explain how to view scripture or a religious concept, exaggeration is inevitable. (The listener and the teller fill in the gaps in information naturally and automatically, for example in stories, the blind spot in the eye, watching movies, listening to music, etc)


When there are good arguments on both sides and you don't have any evidence to make an inference based on Logic, then you always have your friends, family, church and culture to give you a feeling about the truth of an issue. This is the how the industry of marketing and advertising works as well as politics.

Does anyone just pick a church at random and make it their church home? No, they shop around and visit other churches till they find one that 'feels' right. Why does it feel right? The Holy Spirit, Satan or self? How do they know? They decide from the factors listed above. The decide based on the persuasive influences in their environment. Those persuasive influences reinforce their belief in things unseen, un-testable, un-detectable, and things that rely on "internal knowing".


REFERENCES

- Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.
- Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.
- Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.
- Social Judgment Theory
- Information-Integration Models of Attitude
- Cognitive Dissonance Theory
- Theory of Reasoned Action
- Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.
- Cialdini's Six weapons of influence
- List of Cognitive Biases
- DC Article: Why Do Christians Believe?
- DC Article: From an Atheists Perspective
- ChangingMinds.org

Persuasion Videos from Debate Central.
- Speaking to Persuade
- Objects of Persusion
- Theories of Persuasion
- Strategies of Persuasion

The Role of Persuasion in the Question of the Holy Spirit

This article takes one of the examples in the "Reasonable Doubts about the Holy Spirit" article and explores it further to show that there is no possible way for a person to come to an informed belief based on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the alleged interference of Satan or the stubbornness of Humans and that the beliefs that we form about ambiguous subjects are results of factors of persuasion in our environment.

2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

In this situation at least three premises present themselves to Tom before he forms a belief one way or the other.
1. The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today.
2. The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Maybe some are valid and some are not.

Stipulating for the sake of argument that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit were ONLY valid at the time of the Apostles I'll assign some claims to some entities.
1. Satan says that The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today
2. The Holy Spirit says that The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Tom comes up with a compromise that some are valid and some are not.

So How does Tom decide between any of these claims. He is no expert. He stands alone with these thoughts. He can find scripture to support arguments for and against, but his cultural belief in fair play give him the idea that both may be right in certain circumstances. Usually when you have to make a decision or decide what you think about something, it is based on evidence and logical inference. This is true in the day to day interactions in the world. One can see evidence of certain things and one can see if it fits with what the claims are and one can make an informed decision. He knows people that speak in tongues, but he also has a feeling that it may be just a show for attention. However in this case, the evidence is in the Bible, and it seems to be ambiguous on the issue. Usually when one is faced with making a decision and one isn't qualified to make an informed decision, one has to rely on experts.

So now who is an expert? If both arguments have support in the Bible, then how does anyone, even an expert make an informed decision? If they make the decision on a feeling, then how does anyone know where the feeling came from? Holy Spirit, Satan, or the self? If both parties ascribing to different side of the issue make their decision on a feeling that they describe as the Holy Spirit, who can argue? How do they know it was the Holy Spirit? Does this "Holy Spirit Feeling" ever manifest itself in situations where you wouldn't expect any "Holy Spirit Guidance", like at the mall for example? This is where good old fashioned Persuasion and Rhetoric comes into play when you don't have enough information to make a decision about an issue that is ambiguous.

Some factors of Persuasion are in the incomplete list that follows.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses"
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.
- People fill in the gaps in information naturally, stories, blind spot in the eye, movies, music etc
- People will come to believe what they hear the more it is repeated to them.
- People are more likely to believe a story that is accompanied by symbols or imagery.

When there are good arguments on both sides and you don't have any evidence to make an inference based on Logic, then you always have your friends, family, church and culture to give you a feeling about the truth of an issue. This is the how the industry of marketing and advertising work as well as politics.

Does anyone just pick a church at random and make it their church home? No, they shop around, and visit other churches till they find one that 'feels' right. Why does it feel right? The Holy Spirit, Satan or self? How do they know? They decide from the factors listed above. The decide based on the influences in their environment.

To say that one follows the Holy Spirit based on a feeling is a case of special pleading. There is no way to validate it even for the person having the feeling. Therefore, the teachings in the Bible that are ambiguous, logically must not be important and can be disregarded until they can be substantiated in principle and evidence.

REFERENCES

- Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.
- Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.
- Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.
- Cialdini's Six weapons of influence
- Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.
- Why Do Christians Believe?
- From an Atheists Perspective
- ChangingMinds.org

Persuasion Videos from Debate Central.
- Speaking to Persuade
- Objects of Persusion
- Theories of Persuasion
- Strategies of Persuasion

Suspension of Disbelief

Changingminds.org is a site devoted to the study of persuasion. A post I discovered today discusses the suspension of disbelief to enjoy a movie or book and how people enjoy this behavior. I think this can be applied to religion to help explain a facet of it.

Below is an excerpt of the key point of the article.
"In his study of happiness, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) showed that being able to let go of the sense of self has a paradoxical effect of creating a state of happiness that perhaps relates to the one-ness of the neonatal phase. In suspending disbelief in their stories, authors thus help their readers feel good."

I highly recommend keeping an rss feed to this site. You can find a ton of good information about how people persuade each other and react to persuasion. It might help immunize some of you "fence sitters" from evangelicals and give you a fighting chance to resist while you are listening to LSAT Logic in Everday Life, honing your critical thinking skills.

Another excerpt from the "About" page on the site follows.
"You might also be the victim or target of persuasion, as we all are, many times each and every day. Because if you can detect a trick or technique coming your way, you can avoid it, expose it, or play with the trickster, doubling back the deception and outplaying them at their own game. For this is the great leveller: if you try to deceive someone and they discover it, then the game ends there and then, and they may never trust you again."

Additionally, here is a link from their blog on seven rules of religion.

There's also a lot of good Human Resources Department type of information at changingminds.org as well.