[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on June 17th, 2012, 2:39 pm

Pash'nar wrote:No, you can't have that one. It's mine. :3

Bow chica wow wow...

by **Cascade** on June 17th, 2012, 2:44 pm

In my head, IC Pash just did a growl and pointed at Monty... then he said those words.

Hot.

by **Echelon** on June 18th, 2012, 5:22 pm

I am going to attempt to make a post under two lines in your scrap, Reilsing! Ok Cass so Trente is next, right? (This is a test, remember what you are supposed to say?)

by **Seven Xu** on June 18th, 2012, 7:52 pm

by **Montaine** on June 18th, 2012, 7:54 pm

Though not in keeping with the general aesthetic of the Cellar Door, I like your referencing of semi-obscure comedy series.

by **Montaine** on June 24th, 2012, 11:55 am

Would You Believe It?

A thank you first to Arcane for Helping Hands which I think we all know was just a way for Cas to get me to write more soppy, romantic stuff about Pash. It achieved its purpose well enough and Nira'lia has now been sent off to interfere, after all every great love story needs obstacles right? Anyway, onto the subject of today's scrap. In order to fend off attempts to turn page ten into a new page six I've elected to discuss quite a heavy topic in the Cellar today: belief.

Now I'm going to begin with a brief summary of my own beliefs, but it is important that you take into account that personal beliefs are not the actual topic, but I'll get into that in a bit. So I am an atheist, more than that both my parents and all four of my grandparents were atheists. I'm a devout in my non-belief and my scepticism ranges from gods to ghosts, psychics, afterlives, reincarnation, souls, telepathy, homeopathy, crystals, magic, fate and aliens with the capability and or interest to travel to Earth. I suppose you could call me a nihilist, given my sincere belief that there is no absolute or divine purpose to life and existence, however nihilism always gets quite bad press as the philosophy of the depressed. In fact I've found it quite the opposite in myself, as the lack of life after death has forced upon me a philosophy that we have so little time, we must make every second worthwhile, increasing net happiness as much as we can in short spans.

Wow, that was quite a long paragraph. Well, perhaps it will give you a little more insight into me and my psyche, but as I said it isn't what I wanted to discuss here today. I was inspired to tackle this topic by a short exchange in Paragon's scrapbook that I found interesting, about what the actual problem is that most people have with those following other belief systems and it seems to me that the sorts of people that everyone, no matter if you're religious, non-religious or other, dislikes are those who cannot seem to accept the potential validity of other beliefs.

I envy those with faith in an afterlife. To have such conviction that eternal bliss with the ones you love awaits you after you die? I would love to believe that, truly I would. But what the disliked people I previously mentioned (hereforth to be known as 'those people') don't seem to understand is that belief cannot be altered purposefully by the believer. I cannot choose to believe in an afterlife any more than I can choose to believe that vanilla is better than chocolate. I have no respect for those with beliefs based on ignorance, but I think that most people have looked at the same evidence, and simply come to different conclusions. I have read the Bible, I have watched science documentaries, I have sat through religion lessons and physics lessons and I have come to the personal conclusion that to me, to me personally, there isn't enough evidence to convince me that a god or gods exist. But that sure as hell doesn't stop me from accepting wholeheartedly that someone can look at the exact same evidence and come to a different conclusion.

Once a belief has been founded in our minds I believe it can only be altered by the input of new information. I would like to believe that if I experience a truly divine experience, my rational, scientific brain would be able to accept that into my belief system. I shall now give two examples from either end of the spectrum of two people I greatly enjoy the work of and admire. Derren Brown is an illusionist known for his witty performances and staunch stance denouncing the psychic and paranormal. He was an evangelical Christian in his teens, but when he decided to find answers to some of the common criticisms of Christianity in the Bible he found none of the answers he was looking for and summarily decided his faith had no basis, converting to atheism. On the other side, Tamsin Greig, a comedic actress in some of my all time favourite shows was raised an atheist but in 1996 converted to Christianity as her father was dying, finding comfort and answers she hadn't had in her non-belief.

We cannot know the answers to anything. The reason that science uses the term 'theory' for things that they accept to be true is because all we are really doing is going off what evidence we have. What those people don't understand is that we have seen the evidence, and it has inspired belief one way or the other, and without the introduction of new evidence nothing will change. There is no sense telling someone they are wrong, it won't change their beliefs any more than them saying you are wrong will change yours. If you truly want to convert someone, show them new evidence, evidence they haven't seen before. So again, one final time, though I know I can trust you all to stay civilised the topic is the nature of belief, not our own personal ones.

Next time's titles: A Modern Marriage, The World of Tomorrow, Fear and Loathing.

Word of the day: theory, the most reliable, rigorous and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge, almost the an antonym of its more colloquial definition.

-Monty

by **Seven Xu** on June 24th, 2012, 12:19 pm

World’s most casual Christian, reporting in.

First, I’d like to thank you for reading the Bible. No, really. I can say with the utmost certainty that those that give Christianity such a bad reputation (talking Christians, here) haven’t even read the thing—beyond what is read to them in various sermons and study groups. It’s a fascinating book of morals, having lasted so long, but that’s really where it ends for me.

I fully respect the power of religion. The time, effort, bloodshed, all in the name of peoples’ beliefs is both terrifying and astounding to me. Obligatory mention and fawning over the United Kingdom: when I visited England, I also visited a lot of cathedrals. Cathedrals built over hundreds of years, predating the very thought of my own country’s existence. Do you know how absolutely flooring it is to go from a place where “old” architecture is around 200 years, to standing in a church over a thousand years old? Standing where people stood a thousand years ago, imagining that they were just as impressed with the place as I was.

I mean, I was only thirteen at the time, some snot-nosed kid in the awkward beginnings of teenagerdom and I was blown away by it all.

I got off topic.

There are people that take faith as fact, and there are others that take faith as comfort. I’m the latter; I’ll admit. I go to church once a year, at Christmas time, with my grandparents. My parents raised me in an atheist household—not that they self-identified as atheist; there was simply a lack of religion as I grew up. It was sort of a “believe what you want to believe” thing, which was nice, really nice.

I like the notion that I’ll go somewhere when my body dies, but I’m also under the opinion that if I don’t, it won’t matter, because I’ll cease to exist and therefore will not have the ability to be disappointed. So where does that leave me with life? I don’t exactly live it thinking, well, I screwed up and I guess I’m going to hell because I thought this or I stuck my genitals in that—no, if this is all I have, and there’s nothing else, then I’m okay with that. I’m just still on the fence about the ‘if’. I’m sure that makes sense, somehow.

Also I believe in ghosts. I’ve seen them! I mean, seeing is believing, if the 1990’s Casper movie tagline has any merit on the topic.

Hushigsklnkds.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on June 24th, 2012, 10:52 pm

I think I've mentioned before that I am studying the science of communication. Rather than approach this subject from anything that touches on my own beliefs (which are both complicated and far too personal to share here), I'd like to bring up two points that have been discussed in my communications classes that I believe are relevant to the topic at hand.

The first is the nature of truth. When it comes to communication, there are two viewpoints here, each of which are discussed equally. The first is the social scientific view, which based on your discussions Monty, I think will match up better with your views. Social scientists believe that there IS an answer to things, that there is a truth, and it is just a question of how much we understand about it. As you said, you can't expect people to change their views without new evidence. Social scientists don't believe we necessarily already know this truth, but they do believe that it exists, and are always searching for more information to aid their understanding of it.

If those people believe there is one truth, but also believe they've already found it, then they won't accept new data. That could be the difference you're looking for. A good scientist is always willing to be proven wrong. He always keeps collecting more data, more evidence as you say. But he does so because he knows there is a truth out there, and he wants to have the best understanding of it he can. Those people think they've already found the answer, and stop looking for more. And therefore if they think they've found the sneered they assume they are right, and won't accept otherwise.

The other view, held by humanists and critical theorists (the latter of which I won't discuss in detail today), is that the truth is ever changing. We shape and change reality by the way we talk about it. Thus there cannot be a single, knowable truth, because it is ever changing.

As a small example of this, ask yourself, what is this scrapbook? The obvious answer is "a place to share ideas and engage in discussions". But what if I also said it is a place to get to know my friends as their real selves, instead of as the characters they play? A place for social interaction to get closer to people? A place to talk about boobies? (Forgive me the last one, for I am weak and could not help myself.)

For better or worse, these are different views of the same thing. Just like I can view my Droid phone as a way to communicate, or as a calculator, a writing apparatus, a way to pay my online bills, a gaming device, a camera, and so forth.

So if our communication about a thing changes the reality of it, then no one could ever know the real truth. People who change their beliefs, like the two you mentioned, were influenced by their interactions with others, and within themselves, and it changed them. Sometimes it isn't about collecting new evidence. It's about how you look at the evidence you have, and how the communication about it shapes and changes your views. What if I sat down and talked to you about vanilla ice cream, describing all the good things about it, and made you view it in a new light? Would you see it differently? I know when I was a kid I didn't like corn, salad, strawberry ice cream, or cheese. I look at those things differently now. I found I liked them differently now, and sometimes in different contexts; I like salad but without dressing, and I like my cheese on the side instead of on a sandwich.

Likewise my beliefs can change. My beliefs on a subject like abortion (and as I said I won't discuss my views) changed in the last fifteen years. There was no new evidence presented to me; I just started viewing it differently.

On to the other subject: Symbolic Interactionism.

I feel like I'm already rambling, so rather than launch into another long rant, I'll summarize. The basic idea is along the lines of what I've said, how communication changes us. Specifically, there is a concept in Symbolic Interactionism that talks about the "generalized other." Essentially this relates to how you internally feel about the way you think others view you. It can involve things like you thinking about what others expect, and it changes you as a result.

The most basic application of this concept is the idea that if a child is told they're smart, they'll believe it, and end up doing better in school. Thus it often creates a self fulfilling prophecy.

I've read a lot of articles on this topic and how it relates to everything from student/teacher interactions, to the normalization of amoral business practices, to religion.

Setting aside questions of whether God exists. And just analyzing whether the people being studied believe in God, communication theorists found that God can serve the same role of the generalized other. People were found to be just as effected by how they thought God viewed them as they were by how they thought friends and family viewed them. This perception changed them. Their interaction with God (as they believed it occurred) influenced them in a direct and real way.

This could lend to why people can or cannot change their beliefs. I've heard of people saying they stopped believing in God because "when they prayed, he wasn't listening". Whether you say this is true or just in their heads, the important point is that their beliefs were changed, not by new evidence, but by their communication with God (or what they believed was communication with Him).

by **Montaine** on June 25th, 2012, 8:29 am

When you put it like that, Minnie, it makes a lot of sense. There are two key elements in making decisions, or finding beliefs, the evidence, the data that are input, and your own consideration of said data. If it were purely about evidence we could never make estimations, or predictions, we could only rely on what we can see or hear or claim to know and as so much science is based in prediction we really wouldn't get anywhere. So yes, I suppose there are two ways for beliefs to change, not just new evidence but new ways of considering that evidence. I do, however, remain staunchly of the belief that we cannot force that change. It has to come naturally.

I recently had a discussion with my dad about the creative element of mathematics during which he was trying to explain to me how much imagination and creativity went into the subject and how it wasn't just a matter of finding the right path but creating it. I still struggle to wrap my brain around the concept, because it makes so much more sense to me that mathematics are stationary, solid, and any change in our understanding of it is just that, a change in understanding and not a change in mathematics. I figure, however, that he would be far better placed to judge and accept that my knowledge of maths stopped in secondary school.

As both of you pointed out so eloquently, the people I have a problem with are those who see their beliefs as infallible. The abject certainty of their own position is so contrary to the scientific method that I simply cannot stand it. Science calls what they believe beyond reasonable doubt 'theories' for precisely this reason.

Also, my mum saw a ghost too. A carriage and horses at a notorious spot, but as I myself hadn't seen them I'm afraid I can't trust solely witness accounts, which is fair enough, right?

by **Montaine** on June 28th, 2012, 6:11 pm

Fear and Loathing

I suppose, really with all things considered, I was lucky. Out of all the storytellers to mark The Hard Sell I managed to get the dirtiest minded of the lot. I was planning on apologising for the travesty that was my first ever risqué thread but frankly, Cas, I suspect you jumped at the opportunity to grade it, just to read about Monty having fun. Well, thank you for that, and for Family Outing, my longest thread yet with the posting machine that is Tock. I thoroughly enjoyed writing both of those threads, despite any questionable content to the point that I remember doing a significant amount of each in one night. That's how it should be.

Anyway, onto the topic for today: fear. I figured the last scrap was a bit heavy so I'd do something light. Wikipedia, source of all of my knowledge, begins its entry on fear by describing it as 'a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat'. This is quite a curious definition, I think, given that the fears so often discussed tend to be phobias, which are literally defined as irrational fears or hatreds. Surely if something is identified as irrational it cannot be perceived as a threat? I have a phobia, a proper run screaming phobia, yet I don't perceive the subject of that fear as a threat in any way. I struggle to say the name of the subject of my fear yet I've never considered it as a perceived threat. That would suggest, of course, that the perception occurs subconsciously, in which case my subconscious is a moron.

Now some people enjoy fear. This is a thing I know to be true yet do not comprehend myself. I dislike rollercoasters, I dislike horror films, hell, I don't like surprise parties. I remember once seeing a documentary which explained that some of us release one chemical when experiencing fear whilst others release a different one. The first group feel a rush, they are the explorers, the go getters, the risk takers, they are the cavemen that harnessed fire and ventured into the next valley. Then there are the second group, who, well, let's just say we don't like it so much. To me, fear is like pain, something to be avoided at all costs. We are the cavemen that stayed in the cave for fear of getting burnt. We are also the ones who stayed alive long enough to actually understand fire and work it into a proper technology. Both types of people are necessary for society to evolve. I just happen to be part of group B for Boring.

Fear obviously has an evolutionary purpose. It makes us faster, more aware, gives us a chance to survive long enough to reproduce and so on. So what about phobias? I can certainly make connections between my phobia and my childhood. Huh, I haven't said what the phobia is yet, have I? Gastropods, specifically of the shell-less variety. We had a slug infestation when I was a kid so it undoubtedly has something to do with that, though for life of me I cannot tell you why I still to this day run away from slugs. It's not like they can chase me, after all. I can understand a number of phobias, if you're locked up somewhere small you might become claustrophobic, coulrophobia is perfectly understandable, but why slugs?

I've spent many years considering it and I've come to a few conclusions. I think it might be their fragility. The idea that you could just push your finger through their body revolts me. Okay. I just had to stop writing for a bit there. It's surprisingly hard for me to write about the squishy little bastards. You know once, a friend of my mum's put her foot into her wellington boot and there was one inside. Squish.

Okay, I think I've started rambling now, so better end it here. I will say this though, just because it pisses me off when people don't understand the definitions of things, a phobia is an irrational fear or hatred. You don't have to be afraid of something to be phobic of it.

Word of the day: shambolic, adjective, chaotic or disorganised

-Monty