Searching for GOD...

[floo]

I've got the thing about miracles - God will help you find a parking place, but doesn't help a child dying in pain.   It all makes sense!

Weird that!

[Nearly Sane]

Divine intervention does exist, but it is exceptional - it is not the norm.  That is why such intervention is perceived as miraculous rather than just a natural phenomenon.

Then your god chooses for babies to die in excrutiating pain. Your god is thug by your own words.

Worse your god stopped you getting  a parking ticket according to you while someone watched their child die screaming that day. What an unpleasant cunt you portray your god to be!

[Gordon]

Divine intervention does exist, but it is exceptional - it is not the norm.  That is why such intervention is perceived as miraculous rather than just a natural phenomenon.

Ah - you use 'perceived' but not 'demonstrated', and in addition since I'd imagine the majority of people who claim to 'perceive' miracles don't: they mostly read and accept the account of others, so you seem to be using 'perceived' when 'believed' is the word you need.

What people believe and whether their belief is justified are different matters: you are stuck at the former and won't touch the latter with a barge pole (hence my question about how you assess the risks of mistakes or lies is never addressed by you guys).

[Alan Burns]

So - you're deciding what words to type in response to what people said to you, as opposed to typing random words: so what? It means you are thinking, and it doing so using those bits of your biology that support thinking - and what you think doesn't occur in isolation, and you aren't aware of any unconscious influences.

This stuff about some external source of control that is 'not definable by material science' is just raw assertion via personal incredulity that is borne of your desperate need to contrive a hook to hang your god on - you are as much a passenger of determinism as the rest of us - that you don't like the idea matters it a jot.

Yes, it is me that is deciding what to type.  And the content of my words is certainly influenced by what other people have written, but it is not dictated by them - I have full control to decide how, when and where I respond.  My conscious control is not just the way it seems - it is the way it is.

[Gordon]

Yes, it is me that is deciding what to type.  And the content of my words is certainly influenced by what other people have written, but it is not dictated by them - I have full control of how, when and where I respond.  My conscious control is not just the way it seems - it is the way it is.

No, Alan, it is the way it seems and you're a fool to think otherwise.

[Alan Burns]

No, Alan, it is the way it seems and you're a fool to think otherwise.

Then virtually 100% of the human population must be fools to think they are in control of their own thoughts, words and actions.

And yes, you can use your own deliberate act of control to accuse me of the ad populum fallacy again!

[Nearly Sane]

Then virtually 100% of the human population must be fools to think they are in control of their own thoughts, words and actions.

And yes, you can use your own deliberate act of control to accuse me of the ad populum fallacy again!

It isn't an accusation. It's simply pointing out that the argument is flawed. When most of the population thought the earth was the centre of the universe (and indeed may still do)was that a good argument for it being true?

[Enki]

Then virtually 100% of the human population must be fools to think they are in control of their own thoughts, words and actions.

And yes, you can use your own deliberate act of control to accuse me of the ad populum fallacy again!

And you can never actually touch the keys that you are typing with, although virtually 100% of the human population would think that you are. So what?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Sorry, but a sensation of control is not control - it is just a reaction which is deemed to appear like control.

For any form of control to exist, whether is is perceived as internal or external, it must by definition come from a source capable of deliberately exerting control.  Such a source is not definable in material science, but I am currently in total control of the keys I am deliberately typing.  It is not a sensation of control, it is definitive control exerted my me - it is not just an uncontrollable reaction dictated entirely by past events.

This is basically the same nonsense Vlad attempts when he says, “If your definition of morality doesn’t agree with mine, then it’s not real morality”. “Control” doesn’t imply that he has to be the equivalent of a kid flying his toy helicopter on Christmas day – separate from it but pulling the levers. That we feel as though we have “control” is just a term we use for the deeper reality that we can’t avoid the substrate of cause and effect. The alternative is randomness, which would be chaotic.

You might not like that, you might really, really want it not to be so but the fact remains that you cannot escape it. No matter how much you wave your fists and shout, “But I’m in control! But I’m in control!” the “I” remains a perception made up of unfathomably large numbers of interactions of material stuff and forces that create the emergent property of self.     

[Gordon]

Then virtually 100% of the human population must be fools to think they are in control of their own thoughts, words and actions.

I'm not sure virtually 100% do, and even if they did this doesn't mean they are correct.

And yes, you can use your own deliberate act of control to accuse me of the ad populum fallacy again!

Observing your tendency to use fallacious reasoning, Alan, isn't 'control' - it is just me thinking in response to what you say (such as the ad pop above).

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Then virtually 100% of the human population must be fools to think they are in control of their own thoughts, words and actions.

And yes, you can use your own deliberate act of control to accuse me of the ad populum fallacy again!

It's not foolish to think that because that's the way it feels, just as many other phenomena feel one way but are in fact explained differently.

The fools are those who, once they have it explained, keep repeating the irrational mantra they prefer nonetheless as if their argument hadn't now been falsified. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

This is basically the same nonsense Vlad attempts when he says, “If your definition of morality doesn’t agree with mine, then it’s not real morality”. .   

Are you sure the word definition applies to your ideas Hillside? Many of your definitions seem to be mini movable feasts vis Leprechauns which one minute are little Irish Chappies then divine beings the next.

I think you've defined morality variously as behaviour with label and taste. Oh and moral zeitgeist, in which the definitions of morality must be changing all the time.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Are you sure the word definition applies to your ideas Hillside? Many of your definitions seem to be mini movable feasts vis Leprechauns which one minute are little Irish Chappies then divine beings the next.

And lying again helps you how exactly?

I think you've defined morality variously as behaviour with label and taste. Oh and moral zeitgeist, in which the definitions of morality must be changing all the time.

That’s not how I’ve defined it, but no matter. Axiomatically, the Zeitgeist will only change when enough people think it has but, if you haven’t noticed, that’s exactly what happens. Think of the changing morality about gay rights for example.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

And lying again helps you how exactly?

That’s not how I’ve defined it, but no matter. Axiomatically, the Zeitgeist will only change when enough people think it has but, if you haven’t noticed, that’s exactly what happens. Think of the changing morality about gay rights for example.

How have you defined morality Hillside?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

How have you defined morality Hillside?

Same as always: values and behaviours concerned with what's considered right and wrong derived from a combination of our intuitive and reasoning selves, sometimes codified and accepted as cultural norms when enough people's positions cohere to form the Zeitgeist.   

Now as I've answered your question, how about finally answering one of mine: what method do you propose to decide on the adequacy or otherwise of the competing narratives that could explain your religious experience?

[Alan Burns]

This is basically the same nonsense Vlad attempts when he says, “If your definition of morality doesn’t agree with mine, then it’s not real morality”. “Control” doesn’t imply that he has to be the equivalent of a kid flying his toy helicopter on Christmas day – separate from it but pulling the levers. That we feel as though we have “control” is just a term we use for the deeper reality that we can’t avoid the substrate of cause and effect. The alternative is randomness, which would be chaotic.

You might not like that, you might really, really want it not to be so but the fact remains that you cannot escape it. No matter how much you wave your fists and shout, “But I’m in control! But I’m in control!” the “I” remains a perception made up of unfathomably large numbers of interactions of material stuff and forces that create the emergent property of self.   

You seem to be talking yourself out of existence and relegating yourself to just being part of the material continuum of this universe, but I know I am conversing with the real entity of awareness which is you, Blue, fully capable of exerting your own will in this universe.

I agree that we can't avoid the substrate of cause and effect.  The question to ponder lies in whether there is a definable ultimate cause generated by conscious human will, or whether the ultimate cause drifts off into an infinity of physical chains of unavoidable cause and effect.  Of course if you presume that our conscious awareness is just an emergent property of the physically defined activity taking place in our brains, then we have to conclude that any perceived control is just an illusion.  But we all have incredibly strong perception that it is our conscious awareness which is in control.  If this perception is true it provides evidence for the spiritually defined willpower of the human soul.

[Gordon]

But we all have incredibly strong perception that it is our conscious awareness which is in control.

I don't.

If this perception is true it provides evidence for the spiritually defined willpower of the human soul.

And if this perception, which I don't seem to have, is false?

[Alan Burns]

And if this perception, which I don't seem to have, is false?

Then you must be just a biological robot 

[Nearly Sane]

Then you must be just a biological robot 

So?

[Gordon]

Then you must be just a biological robot 

So what?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Same as always:

Yes......vague and as indefinite as smoke.

[ippy]

Having read this last load of Alan's posts I think it's pretty safe to say that he's certainly living in a world of his own making, a sad case.

ippy

[Alan Burns]

Having read this last load of Alan's posts I think it's pretty safe to say that he's certainly living in a world of his own making, a sad case.

ippy

I am a free spirit, living life to the full, with a great family and community and enjoying every day as a precious gift from God.  Nothing at all to be sad about, Ippy.   

[Shaker]

I am a free spirit, living life to the full, with a great family and community and enjoying every day as a precious gift from God.  Nothing at all to be sad about, Ippy.   

Other than the hopeless credulity and almost superhuman penchant for the logical fallacy.

Other than that ...

[ippy]

I am a free spirit, living life to the full, with a great family and community and enjoying every day as a precious gift from God.  Nothing at all to be sad about, Ippy.   

Mandy Rice Davies.

I'm sure your rather unrealistic lifestyle suits you well, but please leave the vulnerable very young children out of it,  untill they're at least 7/8 years old and then no one can justifiably accuse you of indoctrinating them, apart from that I wish you a very long happy delusional lifestyle, it obviously pleases  you.

Kind regards ippy.