Stages of Faith Math Analogy

[Anonymous]

@DevilsAdvocate

You say 2 things in your post that come together for me.

The reason that Santa Claus is such a good model for me as an atheist it explains perfectly how the faith model applies to me. I can accept that other people have different beliefs about it – however, in the end I believe that my perception of reality is the accurate one – although not necessarily the most useful one. I can see how I can take good from the mythology and apply it to my life. To me, reality simply does not include the supernatural – just as to many reality does not include Santa Clause.

[Anonymous]

bc_pg wrote:

@DevilsAdvocate

You say 2 things in your post that come together for me.

The reason that Santa Claus is such a good model for me as an atheist it explains perfectly how the faith model applies to me. I can accept that other people have different beliefs about it – however, in the end I believe that my perception of reality is the accurate one – although not necessarily the most useful one. I can see how I can take good from the mythology and apply it to my life. To me, reality simply does not include the supernatural – just as to many reality does not include Santa Clause.

I understand what you mean by appreciating the value of Santa Claus and respecting other people’s right to believe in him being more or less the same as Stage 5 from your perspective but my concern is that people that believe in God could think you are implying that it’s completely absurd to believe in God. My point is that many adults do believe in God (including me) that don’t believe in Santa Claus and there are understandable reasons why they would continue to believe in God that do not apply to Santa Claus at all especially if they are not really bothered by the idea of anything supernatural or the idea that there is more to life than what you see nearly as much as many die-hard skeptics are.

[Anonymous]

Maybe God is Santa Claus.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I understand what you mean by appreciating the value of Santa Claus and respecting other people’s right to believe in him being more or less the same as Stage 5 from your perspective but my concern is that people that believe in God could think you are implying that it’s completely absurd to believe in God. My point is that many adults do believe in God (including me) that don’t believe in Santa Claus and there are understandable reasons why they would continue to believe in God that do not apply to Santa Claus at all especially if they are not really bothered by the idea of anything supernatural or the idea that there is more to life than what you see nearly as much as many die-hard skeptics are.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

doug wrote:

Maybe God is Santa Claus.

Maybe God is a flying teapot and you can’t prove he’s not but that’s beside the point that no one really believes that but many people already believe God created life and hears their prayers so there must be a reason why God is so much more popular than other allegedly equally imaginary characters (according to atheists). I’m not saying popularity is necessarily a good way to decide what is true or not but I do think it shows that the idea of God makes sense to a large number of adults and I don’t think you can say the same thing about Santa Claus.

[Anonymous]

Good discussion.

I like M&G’s box analogy, but I might add, that with stage 5, when the landscape is more fully experienced, it actually provides better understanding of “the box”, a deeper meaning to it, not just a tolerance for it and those in it. There is a reason many in stage 3 are happy inside the box, not because they are fooled or kept from ever looking beyond the box, but from their view that is all they see, and they can thrive and happily live in that box without any dissonance. There is enough beauty and utility and space inside that box to never need to venture outside of it, but work diligently inside the box to make it fulfilling and meaningful. I do not view stage 3 as lesser or immature. Its just one view of truth.

I think stage 5 is not just about tolerance to others, nor is it dishonest and nuanced so there is no meaning to it (changing the meaning of a triangle to fit a different definition). It is the different point of view that allows what was in stage 3 to be true, AND there is more to the truth than stage 3 view only. Neither are “wrong”.

Orson said it well, it sometimes can’t be forced. It comes through some experience and internal change.

It reminds me of those 3-D posters.

Stage 3: There are lines in the poster. The lines are all red. The page is 8.5″ x 11″. We call it a dolphin poster. It is art and we like it. If you’d like to join our group, we’ll give you one of our copies of the dolphin poster. We all have dolphin posters on our walls in our homes, which provides us with joy. (All of which are true statements).

Stage 4: “Someone else showed me a poster of a dolphin, and it looks nothing like the poster I was shown in stage 3. Now that I look at the poster closer, there is not even a dolphin in the poster. I was lied to and deceived. It isn’t art, it isn’t even beautiful. Its just lines on a page. There is no physical evidence of a dolphin anywhere on the page. Don’t people in stage 3 know that science can be used to identify dolphins, and there is no dolphin on that page…that is a fact. Stage 5 people try to tell me you have to look at the page differently…they must be crazy. It is either a dolphin or it is not. And this is no dolphin. That frustrates me. In fact, I don’t know if this other picture is a dolphin either (what if I get tricked again?? what if we can’t prove anything?), I don’t know if anyone even knows what a real dolphin is. I’m not looking at art anymore. I quit.”

Stage 5: By standing in a certain location from the poster and focusing my eyes “through the page” something is different. The picture is the same, the lines are still red and 8.5×11, but now my eyes have adjusted. The page jumps alive to me and in a third dimension with depth and shape and form, I can see the dolphin jumping through the hoop in great detail with pool water behind it, and a sun in the sky (nobody told me the picture had a sun in it! New discovery…cool). It is totally wild. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before. I can try to tell others about it, but I can’t focus their eyes for them, they’ll have to do that if they want to. The art means even more to me now than it did before, in a 3-D way that is way more beautiful than just red lines and a page size. I’m hanging this art on the wall.

You see…the picture never changed. Nor is the person in stage 3 wrong or “tricked”. Nor is the person in stage 4 wrong. Nor is the person in stage 5 wrong, or sneaky or dishonest or fluffy or abstract. They are all right based on how they see the same thing.

Stage 5 can understand why stage 3 sees it that way, and why stage 4 sees it that way. But there is real truth to the stage 5 view. It is really there for those who can adjust their eyes to it. If you want to use physics or laws of the universe, you can’t limit it to measuring stage 3 qualities, like shape or colors. If you want to use science, you have to explain the eyes, the lens, how we process it in our brains…then you can use science to explain it. But the person in stage 3 or 4 might not be able to use science to prove their point if they are using it on the page only. They are asking the wrong questions. They are looking in the wrong place. The universe and laws of the universe aren’t changing from stage to stage…just the person’s viewpoint in trying to explain it.

That is to me the difference. Most of the time stage 3 and 4 people are unable to see it any other way, and so, they are sure they are right, and usually call others who say otherwise as crazy or misguided or wrong.

I emphasize that none of these stages are wrong. But to this day, my wife cannot get her eyes to see any 3-D posters, as hard as she’s tried. And I can’t get her to see it either. And I’ve stopped trying to tell her to keep trying to see it my way. I just accept we see it differently. But I’m not lying to her. I really do see the 3-D images in the poster and know why they call it a dolphin poster. Maybe one day she’ll see, maybe she won’t. And that is OK.

So…what of stage 6? I understand it the least…but would say…stage 6 is drawing a new poster. Instead of dolphins…this new one will have Jet planes, and hopefully others will see it the way the artist intended them to. The stage 5 person has no idea how the stage 6 person can draw the 3-D poster…it is an unbelievable thing, but the stage 5 person really appreciates the artwork provided by the stage 6-er.

[Anonymous]

These replies are helpful in understanding Stage 5. I know that I wouldn’t really understand it unless I experienced it, and I can’t force myself into Stage 5, just like I didn’t force myself into Stage 3 or Stage 4. I see that Stage 5 accepts the possibility of both subjective and objective truth. It does seem that these stages happen in their own way and on their own timetable. We don’t ask for them to happen; they seem to happen to us in an unbidden way. It seems to me that I may need to let my own Stage 4 run its own course on its own timetable. It looks like people move to Stage 5 when they grow tired of Stage 4 and realize its limitations. In other words, we don’t choose the Stage we are in, and we don’t choose to move from one Stage to the next. They are things that happen to us, and the Stage of faith we are at is beyond our will and ability to control. I’m not trying relieve myself of responsibility, but it seems that we do not control our position in these stages. I don’t think that anyone would argue that we can simply choose to be in Stage 6 and would suddenly be there.

I like the Magic Eye analogy. I have to ask myself, “Is the dolphin real or is the dolphin imaginary?” Even if a person feels God in their life and feels and sees a powerful life-force that permeates the universe, all of their feelings and views could be an imaginary construct of their marvelous human brain. I’ve had many “revelations” and “spiritual experiences” that turned out to be imaginary constructs of my brain. So how do I know what is real and what is imaginary? I don’t buy the idea that “if it’s real to me, then it’s real.” I can feel very real and powerful feelings for an attractive woman, and I could have very real and powerful feelings that she and I will get married, and these feelings are completely real to me, but if she doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, then the marriage will never be real; it would exist only in my imagination. Even powerful internal experiences don’t necessarily correspond to real external phenomena.

I’m very careful about imaginary spiritual experiences, because I’ve been fooled many times, sometimes very badly and at significant cost.

So I know that the structure of Stage 5 is real, but how does one know if the content of Stage 5 is real?

[Anonymous]

InquiringMind wrote:

So I know that the structure of Stage 5 is real, but how does one know if the content of Stage 5 is real?

yes. I think those are the kind of right questions to be asking, InquiringMind.

While it may take time and you may not be able to force it, continuing to search with a contrite spirit and sincere desire helps.

[Anonymous]

I’m not a big fan of analogies, Heber, but I think yours was a pretty good one. Thanks for sharing.

IM, it sounds to me like you’re on the right track. I think the journey from one stage to another is as imperceptible and the changing of the seasons.

[Anonymous]

InquiringMind wrote:

So how do I know what is real and what is imaginary? I don’t buy the idea that “if it’s real to me, then it’s real.” I can feel very real and powerful feelings for an attractive woman, and I could have very real and powerful feelings that she and I will get married, and these feelings are completely real to me, but if she doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, then the marriage will never be real; it would exist only in my imagination. Even powerful internal experiences don’t necessarily correspond to real external phenomena.

I think you’re on the right track. Internal realities do not always translate to external realities. Part of the point that I think we’re trying to make is found in the question: “Does the internal experience hold any value in and of itself?” Does it enrich the personal life/experience? Does it motivate the person to reach higher or do more good? Can it drive a similar or even a loosely related “self-fulfilling prophecy” that will externally benefit the individual? Do we have to completely discount the internal? Is nothing significant or “real” unless it is external and observable?

What is our life experience anyway? Is it only what the whole of mankind can agree on as “real”? …or is it our personal interpretation of what we experience for ourselves? What is meaningful? Does the external to us define our meaningful?

For me, I find huge power in the desire and ability to own my personal experience. I don’t need validation from the world.

[Author]

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