Searching for GOD...

[Shaker]

I do not enjoy getting so much negative feedback

Clearly you do. You're still here, your mission unfulfilled each and every day.

but it does fulfil the prophesy of Jesus that His followers will have to suffer ridicule.

Not exactly to Jesus's credit.

[Maeght]

If that is the case, all my actions are pre determined, even my answers to posts, or my decision not to answer, so whatever my response is, you can have no argument with it because it must be the natural deterministic reaction to previous events over which I have no control.

So what?

[Alan Burns]

Brains are continually assessing novel information against memory and expectation to make the best interpretation.  The illusion below illustrates this point, and furthermore, demonstrates this fallibility of this approach :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKa0eaKsdA0

This illustrates how beliefs and expectation influence how we see the world.  We see what we expect to see, not what is there, and this feeds into an understanding of why people with deeply entrenched beliefs have difficulty in seeing past them.

Optical illusions are not a good example for your hypothesis that our apparent freedom to choose is an illusion.  The optical recognition function in the brain can easily be fooled, but the perception of our freedom to choose is a different matter, because the act of making a choice comes from within the mind itself - it is not externally perceived.

[SusanDoris]

AB

Parasitic worms in eyes is a trivial problem, is it? Perhaps you might try explaining that to the sufferers and the doctors who work to produce cures.

[torridon]

Optical illusions are not a good example for your hypothesis that our apparent freedom to choose is an illusion.  The optical recognition function in the brain can easily be fooled, but the perception of our freedom to choose is a different matter, because the act of making a choice comes from within the mind itself - it is not externally perceived.

Then it seems you didn't read, or didn't get, the implications of the post.  Maybe you just skim read looking for a way to counter the post rather than trying to engage and understand the content.  Optical illusions give us a profound insight into the way minds work.  We make decisions using our minds so it is instructive to understand the fundamental principles that constitute mind. The example demonstrates that our conscious experience itself is a construction of preconscious levels of mind to which and over which we have no cognitive access. We cannot force ourselves to see the illusion correctly, faithfully to the data. You are right in saying the act of making a choice comes from within the mind but that is why understanding how minds work is relevant to understanding how minds make choices. Just as we have no cognitive access to preconscious perception, we have no access or control over preconscious processing that leads up to the making of a choice.  A choice has already been made before we 'know' that we have made it. Awareness always follows because awareness itself is a complex particular fabrication of mind.  In a very general sense, if we are subject to an illusion, we will not know it, that is the nature of illusion.  Optical illusions give us a rare insight into the truth of that.

[torridon]

This is a trivial argument because parasites are just one of many forms of suffering which form part of every human life.  It is inevitable that we will all suffer some form of tragedy in our lives, just as it is inevitable that we will all have to suffer the death of our physical bodies.  I do not believe that God deliberately causes such suffering, but I do believe He can bring good out of it if we put our faith in Him.  The history of Christianity is full of people who have had to endure many forms of suffering, but their faith has remained strong, and in many cases their suffering helped them to find God in their lives.

You are not engaging with the point, yet again.  The example of the parasite demonstrates logical contradictions in the creator god hypothesis.  The claim that all things bright and beautiful were made by god also carries within it the dark implication that all things revolting and sickening must have also been made by the same guy.  That doesn't make for such a nice Sunday school ditty though.

[ekim]

Just as we have no cognitive access to preconscious perception, we have no access or control over preconscious processing that leads up to the making of a choice.  A choice has already been made before we 'know' that we have made it. Awareness always follows because awareness itself is a complex particular fabrication of mind.  In a very general sense, if we are subject to an illusion, we will not know it, that is the nature of illusion.

That statement could also be an illusion if it is a fabrication of the mind.  It could be that awareness is always present in a simple state and that the mind complicates it in its propensity for image forming.  Thou shalt not make graven images as these are a product of the mind (to relate this to this thread's topic).

[Sebastian Toe]

  The optical recognition function in the brain can easily be fooled,

As can the thinking function, notably producing some of your posts.

[floo]

Optical illusions are not a good example for your hypothesis that our apparent freedom to choose is an illusion.  The optical recognition function in the brain can easily be fooled, but the perception of our freedom to choose is a different matter, because the act of making a choice comes from within the mind itself - it is not externally perceived.

I agree with that statement. It would appear that many of the Biblical characters were fooled by their optical recognition function.

[torridon]

That statement could also be an illusion if it is a fabrication of the mind.  It could be that awareness is always present in a simple state and that the mind complicates it in its propensity for image forming.  Thou shalt not make graven images as these are a product of the mind (to relate this to this thread's topic).

I guess the Jewish prohibition of graven images (and the koranic counterpart against representing people) was born of the insight that any representation at least diminishes, and at worst, misleads.  A photo of a beautiful landscape might be a fine thing, but it never quite delivers the spine tingling awe that can come from being in the landscape.  On the other hand, an image can be photoshopped so that in some sense it is better than the actual landscape.  Hi-def TVs with their brightness and colour saturation offer an augmented reality that surpasses the duller colours of normal life.  Maybe Alan has done the graven image thing - taken a notion of divinity and photoshopped out all the bad bits and then sets about worshipping his own creation.

[ekim]

Maybe Alan has done the graven image thing - taken a notion of divinity and photoshopped out all the bad bits and then sets about worshipping his own creation.

A good analogy and it probably was applied to the Christian doctrine before him.

[Alan Burns]

Just as we have no cognitive access to preconscious perception, we have no access or control over preconscious processing that leads up to the making of a choice.  A choice has already been made before we 'know' that we have made it.

So when is the legal profession going to catch up with this and claim that every crime is not a deliberate act but an unavoidable consequence over which the perpetrator has no control?

[Sebastian Toe]

So when is the legal profession going to catch up with this and claim that every crime is not a deliberate act but an unavoidable consequence over which the perpetrator has no control?

Point...

As can the thinking function, notably producing some of your posts.

..proved!

[Alan Burns]

I guess the Jewish prohibition of graven images (and the koranic counterpart against representing people) was born of the insight that any representation at least diminishes, and at worst, misleads.  A photo of a beautiful landscape might be a fine thing, but it never quite delivers the spine tingling awe that can come from being in the landscape.  On the other hand, an image can be photoshopped so that in some sense it is better than the actual landscape.  Hi-def TVs with their brightness and colour saturation offer an augmented reality that surpasses the duller colours of normal life.  Maybe Alan has done the graven image thing - taken a notion of divinity and photoshopped out all the bad bits and then sets about worshipping his own creation.

I am well aware of all the bad bits - they are part of reality.  Our ability to recognise good from bad is one of God's gifts.  But you can't use the bad bits to deny the existence of a loving creator.  I put my faith in God by accepting Jesus as my Saviour who can deliver us from evil.

[floo]

I am well aware of all the bad bits - they are part of reality.  Our ability to recognise good from bad is one of God's gifts.  But you can't use the bad bits to deny the existence of a loving creator.  I put my faith in God by accepting Jesus as my Saviour who can deliver us from evil.

So by creating badness and well as goodness, god was then able to generously bestow the ability to know the difference between the two as one of its gifts.

[Sebastian Toe]

...... deliver us from evil.

What is the evil that you need to be delivered from?

[Enki]

So when is the legal profession going to catch up with this and claim that every crime is not a deliberate act but an unavoidable consequence over which the perpetrator has no control?

All human beings, including the legal profession, would be subject to the same preconscious processing. That's the way, it seems, that evolution allows us to function relatively successfully.

[Shaker]

What is the evil that you need to be delivered from?

Might be the evil that God says he creates - the one that AB didn't know about.

[Udayana]

All human beings, including the legal profession, would be subject to the same preconscious processing. That's the way, it seems, that evolution allows us to function relatively successfully.

Maybe we can, leveraging the abilities of the concious part of the mind, train or arrange for the pre-concious processing to work in certain ways? Isn't this what happens? eg in meditation?

[ippy]

I am not lonely! I share a wonderful fellowship with many committed Christians, but God calls me to be a witness to the truth.   I do not enjoy getting so much negative feedback, but it does fulfil the prophesy of Jesus that His followers will have to suffer ridicule.

Oooh we are a little goody, godly, two shoes Alan, you fall for these ploys all of the time and still haven't tumbled it, I'm sure it can only be indoctrination that has caused your complaint, no doubt you'll be passing it on unsolicited to some poor kiddy or other, yuk.

Your indoctrination calls you, there is zero evidence for anything else. (Unless of course if you can come up with some world shattering news that no one else has yet).

ippy

[torridon]

So when is the legal profession going to catch up with this and claim that every crime is not a deliberate act but an unavoidable consequence over which the perpetrator has no control?

The concept of penal reform began with the Victorians with a growing understanding that people are formed by their childhood, over which they had no control, so in some sense they aren't responsible for how they turn out as adults.  That trend is continuing today with the emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment of offenders. That said, society is not ready to ditch all concepts of moral responsibility and the legal profession acts broadly in line with public sentiment.  Is a psychopath responsible for the crimes he commits ?

[torridon]

I put my faith in God by accepting Jesus as my Saviour who can deliver us from evil.

Perhaps he shouldn't have created evil in the first place then.  It's one of the oldest cons in the book, create a problem and then sell you the solution for it.

[torridon]

I am well aware of all the bad bits - they are part of reality.  Our ability to recognise good from bad is one of God's gifts.  But you can't use the bad bits to deny the existence of a loving creator.

We use the bad bits to point out that a loving creator would not create bad bits in the first place.  Your loving creator is an irrational concept and that is why it cannot exist.

[floo]

If a god does exist I hope it is a decent entity and nothing like the character in the Bible.

[Maeght]

I am well aware of all the bad bits - they are part of reality.  Our ability to recognise good from bad is one of God's gifts.  But you can't use the bad bits to deny the existence of a loving creator.  I put my faith in God by accepting Jesus as my Saviour who can deliver us from evil.

The bad bits can be used to question the description of God as loving.