Author Topic: Searching for GOD...  (Read 3863626 times)

Gordon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51625 on: November 10, 2024, 11:25:07 AM »
The argument for the necessary entity is not an argument for Christianity. Some argue that it is not an argument for theism. But I think few would argues that it is an argument against theism.

I'm not sure it's an argument at all: seems to me it's no more that an arbitrary and convenient device to stop an infinite regress arising from theology rather than evidence.

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What you have to decide is how the necessary entity fits into naturalism and atheism given that pursuing thought as to what the necessary entity must be like leads us to conclude that

It must be singular
It cannot be composite
It’s actions aren’t controlled or conditioned or determined by chance or external law
Everything is dependent for it’s existence on this entity.

I don't need to consider how it 'fits into naturalism' or what its attributes might be at all: the burden of proof is yours alone.

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If your definition of natural is that which is observationally verifiable then You need to justify your belief that some things which are not observationally verifiable are naturalistic.

Such as?

ekim

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51626 on: November 10, 2024, 11:27:29 AM »
Religion can be dangerous and it is good to flag its dangers but it is also very useful in motivating and uniting people to fight threats - both cultural threats or even physical threats such as armies and missiles, which are as dangerous as religion, and are often touted as human progress.

Yes,unfortunately although a religion tends to perhaps unify people on a personal level, it also tends to be divisive on a collective level and separates those who follow one persuasion from those who follow a different persuasion.  It also allows power hungry shepherds and their sheep dogs to control the indoctrinated flock, much the same as with political persuasions.

Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51627 on: November 10, 2024, 12:19:56 PM »
Religion can be dangerous and it is good to flag its dangers but it is also very useful in motivating and uniting people to fight threats - both cultural threats or even physical threats such as armies and missiles, which are as dangerous as religion, and are often touted as human progress.

I don't know of anyone who touts missiles and armies as evidence of human progress - an unwanted but entirely foreseeable result of improvements in our technical capability, perhaps. As to religion being a bulwark against cultural threats... when? When has organised religion been at the forefront of cultural progress? The great victory that was the abolition of slavery that people call out as being the result of the religiously motivated abolitionists was, of course, a disagreement with the equally religiously motivated supporters. Women's rights? Gay rights? Children's rights? Free speech? When religion does unite groups, it's intrinsically tribal and, by definition, just as clearly excluding groups.

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Religion is just one tool to both oppress and free people - humans have plenty of others.

Yes. And where there are benefits from the others, we should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but with religion there is so little the constitutes any real benefit, and what there is can be so easily sourced from elsewhere. It's a net drain on humanity, and it's had its day. The world would be so much better a place if humanity grew up, threw off the fairy store, and moved forward without it.

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Since religion can be harnessed to fight oppression, and I'm not saying I don't get atheist perspectives on this (I do - having been an atheist), I prefer the "mixed blessing" of religion in the world as I believe we need to a system of checks and balances and religion can be a very useful check on human rapacity ....along with the other "7 deadly sins" if we're going to use Christian religious terminology  ;)

I look to the middle-East, and see religion not being used to fight oppression, but to fuel it - on all sides. Indian Hindu nationalism isn't fighting oppression, it's the tool of it. Christian Nationalism in the US. The anti-Muslim rhetoric around much of the 'small boats' argument in the UK. It's mixed in with racism, often, and sometimes other class or cultural divides, but I don't see anyone using to unite these factions. It's tribalism, and it always has been.

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bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51628 on: November 10, 2024, 01:56:06 PM »
Vlad,

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The argument for the necessary entity is not an argument for Christianity. Some argue that it is not an argument for theism. But I think few would argues that it is an argument against theism.

It's not an argument at all – or at least not a sound one – because it rests on several fallacies that you cannot or will not address.

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What you have to decide is how the necessary entity fits into naturalism and atheism given that pursuing thought as to what the necessary entity must be like leads us to conclude that

It must be singular
It cannot be composite
It’s actions aren’t controlled or conditioned or determined by chance or external law
Everything is dependent for it’s existence on this entity.

No, what you have to decide first is how you’d propose to resolve the fallacies on which the argument from contingency relies. Solve that problem and only then can we talk about the various properties you attribute to this supposed entity.

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If your definition of natural is that which is observationally verifiable then You need to justify your belief that some things which are not observationally verifiable are naturalistic.

Yet again, the burden of proof fallacy passes some 30,000 ft above your head. If you want to assert a “necessary entity” and rely on a suite of false arguments to justify your claim, no-one else needs to justify anything. That’s your problem – own it.     
« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 01:59:24 PM by bluehillside Retd. »
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bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51629 on: November 10, 2024, 02:08:57 PM »
NS,

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…One could replace religion in Outroder's comments with politics, and it would make as much sense.

Is that actually true though? Religions depend on faith – ie, “X is true because I really, really believe X is true” whereas politics, however imperfectly, has at least some grounding in facts and evidence. When, say, Trump says he’ll create X jobs and then actually destroys X jobs that’s measurable and so he can be judged accordingly. On the other hand, when a cleric says “if you go to bed with the wrong person you’ll burn in hell” there’s no way to check that and to hold him accountable for being wrong. In this respect at least, religion and politics seem to me to be importantly different fields.     
« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 02:13:30 PM by bluehillside Retd. »
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Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51630 on: November 10, 2024, 02:13:31 PM »
NS,

Is that actually true though? Religions depend on faith – ie, “X is true because I really, really believe X is true” whereas politics, however imperfectly, has at least some grounding in facts and evidence. When, say, Trump says he’ll create X jobs and then actually destroys X jobs that’s measurable and so he can be judged accordingly. On the other hand, when a cleric says “if you go to bed with the wrong person you’ll burn in hell” there’s no way to check that and to hold him accountable for being wrong. In this respect at least, religion and politics seem to me to be fundamentally different fields.     
Effectively any ideology is a matter of faith since it's about what is right. The division in the US is about how people use facts to back up their faith, or what they call facts, just as Alan Burns does about evidence for the resurrection for example.

The inherent traits of why we have religion seem to drive our choice in other areas.

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51631 on: November 10, 2024, 02:22:35 PM »
NS,

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Effectively any ideology is a matter of faith since it's about what is right. The division in the US is about how people use facts to back up their faith, or what they call facts, just as Alan Burns does about evidence for the resurrection for example.

But broadly all political positions cohere around common objectives – security, prosperity, life expectancy etc. These outcomes are measurable – which is why as an example we can justifiably say that the Truss mini budget was disaster, and so shortly afterwards she was defenestrated. What equivalent results-based accountability do you see for the pronouncements made by clerics?   

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The inherent traits of why we have religion seem to drive our choice in other areas.

Yes, I agree with that – but only religion has the get out of jail free card of “faith”.

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Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51632 on: November 10, 2024, 02:31:05 PM »
I think both Outrider's, and to a lesser extent for post, see religion as something outside of humans. It is, as I think your post hints at, merely a manifestation of a number of traits, such as tribalism, pattern recognition, desire to continue to exist, that were they to be somehow removed would mean that the concept of humanity would be so racially different as to be unrecognisable.

It's not separate from humans in the sense that it somehow exists on its own, but it's not something that's  intrinsic to human behaviour either, like hunger or sexual attraction. Religion is a cultural artefact, the product of ethnic, political, economic, philosophical and psychological trait and behaviours predicated upon authoritarian acceptance of unsubstantiated assertions and the 'sanctifying' of orthodoxy to functionally penalise anyone that questions the tenets.

It's that sanctification of orthodoxy that makes religion both something different and something more dangerous than other cultural movements.

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One could replace religion in Outroder's comments with politics, and it would make as much sense.

No, you can't. There have been individual political movements, say, that have functionally penalised the questioning of their authority and 'rightness' - Stalin's Soviet Union, say, or McCarthyist American democracy - but it's no intrinsic to their nature in the way that religion has a claim of 'truth' that needs to be accepted for entry into the 'in group'. As religions weaken that grip they become both less of a religion - look, for instance, at Anglicanism as a religion and it comes across more as a gesture towards individual faith positions - and less of a threat.

O.
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

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Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51633 on: November 10, 2024, 02:43:24 PM »
It's not separate from humans in the sense that it somehow exists on its own, but it's not something that's  intrinsic to human behaviour either, like hunger or sexual attraction. Religion is a cultural artefact, the product of ethnic, political, economic, philosophical and psychological trait and behaviours predicated upon authoritarian acceptance of unsubstantiated assertions and the 'sanctifying' of orthodoxy to functionally penalise anyone that questions the tenets.

It's that sanctification of orthodoxy that makes religion both something different and something more dangerous than other cultural movements.

No, you can't. There have been individual political movements, say, that have functionally penalised the questioning of their authority and 'rightness' - Stalin's Soviet Union, say, or McCarthyist American democracy - but it's no intrinsic to their nature in the way that religion has a claim of 'truth' that needs to be accepted for entry into the 'in group'. As religions weaken that grip they become both less of a religion - look, for instance, at Anglicanism as a religion and it comes across more as a gesture towards individual faith positions - and less of a threat.

O.
It's inherent in that it is based on traits we have. The only way to remove that is to remove or so substantially change those traits that you aren't talking about humanity any more.

There is nothing in the difference between political beliefs and religion thar stops people thinking they are right because that is their orthodoxy. People kill and sabe because of both.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 03:12:35 PM by Nearly Sane »

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51634 on: November 10, 2024, 02:47:52 PM »
NS,

But broadly all political positions cohere around common objectives – security, prosperity, life expectancy etc. These outcomes are measurable – which is why as an example we can justifiably say that the Truss mini budget was disaster, and so shortly afterwards she was defenestrated. What equivalent results-based accountability do you see for the pronouncements made by clerics?   

Yes, I agree with that – but only religion has the get out of jail free card of “faith”.
No, political beliefs get put of jail because of faith too. The traits that cause religion, are the same as those thar cause political beliefs. The divide in the US shows thar people do have their own facts, and even where facts are agreed that because we have the trait of confirmation  bias, they are interpreted to suit.


Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51635 on: November 10, 2024, 04:38:42 PM »
Vlad,

It's not an argument at all – or at least not a sound one – because it rests on several fallacies that you cannot or will not address.
It shouldn’t be difficult then for you to identify the fallacies and where they occur in the arguments

I shan’t be holding my breath waiting for you to provide them though... or even know what the argument is.

Naturalism is not immune from needing a justification. Nor is the assertion that the argument from contingency is fallacious. You need to get cracking then.

For those leaning into the multiverse being naturalistic they’ve got the added challenges of not resorting to the notion of Gods and justifying that THIS universe is naturalistic.

Time to FOFO lads.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51636 on: November 10, 2024, 04:47:41 PM »
I'd say, Alan, if you'd just pause just for a moment and think, .......

My ability to consciously choose to pause and direct my own thoughts has been deemed to be a logical impossibility by Bluehillside, Stranger, Torridon and others.
Because it is indeed a logical impossibility in the materialistic scenario.
But I have yet to be shown a feasible explanation for how you can give credence to the outcome of our thought processes if we have no conscious control of our thoughts.
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jeremyp

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51637 on: November 10, 2024, 04:50:31 PM »
It shouldn’t be difficult then for you to identify the fallacies and where they occur in the arguments

Well if we take this list of properties you assert the "necessary entity" must have, there are a couple of very serious problems:


It must be singular
It cannot be composite
It’s actions aren’t controlled or conditioned or determined by chance or external law
Everything is dependent for it’s existence on this entity.


The last line is a tautology. You assert there is a necessary entity on which all contingent entities depend.

The other three are non sequiturs in that they do not follow from the assertion "there is a necessary entity".

Why must it be singular?

Why can't it be composite? Note that if this one is true, it rules out the Christian god as the necessary entity.

Why can't its actions be controlled or conditioned or determined by chance or external law?

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jeremyp

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51638 on: November 10, 2024, 05:26:41 PM »
My ability to consciously choose to pause and direct my own thoughts has been deemed to be a logical impossibility by Bluehillside, Stranger, Torridon and others.
Because it is indeed a logical impossibility in the materialistic scenario.
No it isn't. In the materialist scenario, you are the collection of brain cells and connections between them and the activity of them. You take inputs like the content of this post and your prior experience and you process them and come up with actions. You pause and direct your thoughts based on the state of your brain/mind which is determined by all of your prior experience and your development and genetics. It's deterministic but I see no problem with saying it's you that makes decisions even so.
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Gordon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51639 on: November 10, 2024, 06:17:04 PM »
My ability to consciously choose to pause and direct my own thoughts has been deemed to be a logical impossibility by Bluehillside, Stranger, Torridon and others.
Because it is indeed a logical impossibility in the materialistic scenario.
But I have yet to be shown a feasible explanation for how you can give credence to the outcome of our thought processes if we have no conscious control of our thoughts.

If you were correct, and we had to consciously think about what to think next then the thought about what to think next is itself a thought: so we'd have to think about thinking about what to think before we thought about thinking about what to think next - can you see the problem here?
« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 06:19:49 PM by Gordon »

The Accountant, OBE, KC

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51640 on: November 10, 2024, 07:27:26 PM »
Yes,unfortunately although a religion tends to perhaps unify people on a personal level, it also tends to be divisive on a collective level and separates those who follow one persuasion from those who follow a different persuasion.  It also allows power hungry shepherds and their sheep dogs to control the indoctrinated flock, much the same as with political persuasions.
Yes agreed about the power hungry shepherds - they would exist in any sphere including politics - so what you see as one of the problems of religion is that it is basically politics with woo.

Religion does not exist in a vacuum - on a personal level it is part of culture and shaped by culture and also shapes culture. On a collective level, humans are already tribal and divided and religion is one tool to be employed to react against or harness already existing divisions amongst humans.

Divisions and internal / external threats pre-existed religion for each community or society. So if some bright spark came up with a religion to counteract or neutralise a perceived external or internal threat and it worked by uniting people against the perceived threat or by enabling people to dig deep to have resilience against the threat or to cope with the threat, then it's not surprising if people see religion as a useful tool and keep using it and passing it onto their children.

Many people often face real threats to their health, lives, community and way of life so they'll push back. Some use religion to push back in the political sphere or in times of war - but you can't isolate religion as being the factor that allows leaders to brainwash people into fighting for their cause or country, as leaders would still be brainwashing people without religion - because humans can be brainwashed and leaders like to lead.
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The Accountant, OBE, KC

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51641 on: November 10, 2024, 07:55:49 PM »
I don't know of anyone who touts missiles and armies as evidence of human progress - an unwanted but entirely foreseeable result of improvements in our technical capability, perhaps.
I was actually thinking of cultural and technological changes being touted as progress. But in terms of missiles - I don't think military advancements are unwanted - they are very much wanted by many people, hence weapons manufacturing and sales sustains our economy and way of life. We want the money from arms sales but also want the people dying from our country's arms sales to be in another country where our taxes or health service doesn't need to deal with the fall-out from all the people our weapons have hurt. Money itself is a cultural tool - it used to be linked to actual valuable commodities but now governments just print it whenever they need more money to fund wars and they manufacture make-believe value through the use of interest rates, and everyone goes along with these cultural beliefs so they can buy and sell things using money.

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As to religion being a bulwark against cultural threats... when? When has organised religion been at the forefront of cultural progress? The great victory that was the abolition of slavery that people call out as being the result of the religiously motivated abolitionists was, of course, a disagreement with the equally religiously motivated supporters. Women's rights? Gay rights? Children's rights? Free speech? When religion does unite groups, it's intrinsically tribal and, by definition, just as clearly excluding groups.
Firstly, there is no uniting groups. Humans by their nature are diverse, divided and tribal and they will always be so.

Secondly, there is no perfect outcome in cultural changes - it's an ongoing imperfect process where humans make both gains and losses. So as cultures become more individualistic or more commercialised they gain something and they lose something. Religions can be a tool to counter individualism and commercialism and to shape values. They mould culture and are moulded by culture in each area or community. That you don't see any benefit to religion does not mean there are no benefits.  .

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Yes. And where there are benefits from the others, we should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but with religion there is so little the constitutes any real benefit, and what there is can be so easily sourced from elsewhere.
Disagree with your opinion.
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It's a net drain on humanity, and it's had its day. The world would be so much better a place if humanity grew up, threw off the fairy store, and moved forward without it.
Not surprisingly I disagree that fairy stories is all religion has to offer. Also, stories are a great communication tool hence they are so popular, so I am all for stories and what they represent and lessons that can be learned from stories, and don't see it as a sign of growing up or moving forward to reject religion. It depends on how people are using religion.

If people are using organised religion to fight - then it can be a good thing, depending on how they do it, because religion can be a very powerful tool.

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I look to the middle-East, and see religion not being used to fight oppression, but to fuel it - on all sides.
The oppression was already there. I'm not saying religion can't overthrow one form of oppression only to replace it with its own different form of oppression.

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Indian Hindu nationalism isn't fighting oppression, it's the tool of it. Christian Nationalism in the US. The anti-Muslim rhetoric around much of the 'small boats' argument in the UK. It's mixed in with racism, often, and sometimes other class or cultural divides, but I don't see anyone using to unite these factions. It's tribalism, and it always has been.
I think people being united is just a pipe dream because humans are tribal. So I don't see the point of blaming religion for tribalism - it's just another way for humans to put their innate tribalism into practice.

I identify as a Sword because I have abstract social constructs e.g. honour and patriotism. My preferred pronouns are "kill/ maim/ dismember"

Quite handy with weapons - available for hire to defeat money laundering crooks around the world.

“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.” Rumi

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51642 on: November 10, 2024, 08:13:39 PM »
NS,

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No, political beliefs get put of jail because of faith too. The traits that cause religion, are the same as those thar cause political beliefs. The divide in the US shows thar people do have their own facts, and even where facts are agreed that because we have the trait of confirmation  bias, they are interpreted to suit.

You’re committing the fallacy of reaching hasty generalisations. Yes of course Stalinism, MAGA etc just make up their own facts but most political movements don’t. That’s why Truss crashed and burned – her actions were objectively, verifiably disastrous in the real world. There’s clearly a difference between that and clerics who make statements of certainty based on supposed other worlds that have no means of investigation and validation. For them, “You either agree the faith claim or you don’t” is the beginning and the end of it.

These seem to me to be fundamentally different approaches.         

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bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51643 on: November 10, 2024, 08:14:16 PM »
Vlad,

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It shouldn’t be difficult then for you to identify the fallacies and where they occur in the arguments

I have done, several times.The “argument” (such as it is) relies on the fallacy of hasty generalisation, the fallacy of composition and the fallacy of special pleading. Each time I have set them out for you though you’ve just scattered various straw men in reply while you beat a hasty retreat. 

What then would be the point of explaining your multiple mistakes to you yet again?

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I shan’t be holding my breath waiting for you to provide them though... or even know what the argument is.

See above.

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Naturalism is not immune from needing a justification.

Yes it is. Your straw man version of it though is another matter, but as no-one argues for that there’s no justification required for that either.

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Nor is the assertion that the argument from contingency is fallacious. You need to get cracking then.

I have done – repeatedly, and without rebuttal.

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For those leaning into the multiverse being naturalistic they’ve got the added challenges of not resorting to the notion of Gods and justifying that THIS universe is naturalistic.

Time to FOFO lads.

You’ve collapsed into gibberish again.
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Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51644 on: November 10, 2024, 08:29:20 PM »
NS,

You’re committing the fallacy of reaching hasty generalisations. Yes of course Stalinism, MAGA etc just make up their own facts but most political movements don’t. That’s why Truss crashed and burned – her actions were objectively, verifiably disastrous in the real world. There’s clearly a difference between that and clerics who make statements of certainty based on supposed other worlds that have no means of investigation and validation. For them, “You either agree the faith claim or you don’t” is the beginning and the end of it.

These seem to me to be fundamentally different approaches.       
I think you may be hoist by your own petard here. Not all clerics do that. And many politicians so.

In the end it doesn't address the point that religion is produced by us based on inherent traits.

« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 08:32:01 PM by Nearly Sane »

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51645 on: November 10, 2024, 10:44:19 PM »

Wrong again. “Our freedom to control our own thoughts” is illusory because it’s logically impossible. Just inserting a magic “soul” with no justifying evidence for it doesn’t fix that.
 

So the feeling we have over consciously controlling our own thoughts must be illusory, or to take a phrase from your previous posts "just the way it seems".
If that is the case, then surely any conscious convictions that the conclusions from these thoughts are correct must also be illusory or "just the way it seems".
So without the power to control your thoughts, how on earth can you consciously convince yourself that your thoughts must arrive at valid conclusions?
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51646 on: November 10, 2024, 11:25:14 PM »
So the feeling we have over consciously controlling our own thoughts must be illusory, or to take a phrase from your previous posts "just the way it seems".
If that is the case, then surely any conscious convictions that the conclusions from these thoughts are correct must also be illusory or "just the way it seems".
So without the power to control your thoughts, how on earth can you consciously convince yourself that your thoughts must arrive at valid conclusions?
How can one convince oneself of anything? Surely you are convinced by default? Are you suggesting that you have a belief that you try to convince yourself to have? So you believe something, and then give yourself a good talking to to get you to believe what you believe.


torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51647 on: November 11, 2024, 06:49:20 AM »
So the feeling we have over consciously controlling our own thoughts must be illusory, or to take a phrase from your previous posts "just the way it seems".
If that is the case, then surely any conscious convictions that the conclusions from these thoughts are correct must also be illusory or "just the way it seems".
So without the power to control your thoughts, how on earth can you consciously convince yourself that your thoughts must arrive at valid conclusions?

We do not know if our conclusions are valid, merely that they feel right if they align with our inner model and biases. We get to a conclusion via the flow of our thoughts with one thought triggering the next and so on, and it is not the case that we are somehow separate from our thoughts such that we can exert some independant influence upon them to flow in a different way.

Gordon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51648 on: November 11, 2024, 07:31:23 AM »

So without the power to control your thoughts, how on earth can you consciously convince yourself that your thoughts must arrive at valid conclusions?

You don't: your experience and personal traits mean that thoughts about your own personal convictions will rest easy with you while thoughts to the contrary - as expressed by people like me - don't. Therefore, your sense that your thoughts are 'valid' is just another way of saying that you are comfortable with your own thinking.

You believe there is a 'God' - but that does not mean that the notion of 'God' is a valid one for everyone else.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2024, 08:07:35 AM by Gordon »

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #51649 on: November 11, 2024, 09:02:17 AM »
NS,

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I think you may be hoist by your own petard here. Not all clerics do that. And many politicians so.

No. Cleric A says “God X is the one true god, and I know this because that’s my faith”; cleric B says “God Y is the one true god, and I know this because that’s my faith”.

Politician A says “my policies will make people wealthiest, and you can test this by measuring economic data”; politician B says, “no, my policies will make people wealthiest and you can test this by measuring the economic data”.

For the former, “faith” is fundamentally subjective. There’s no means to test either claim. For the latter though, the different claims reach into objective data (eg disposable household incomes) that can be tested. This seems to me to be an important difference.     

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In the end it doesn't address the point that religion is produced by us based on inherent traits.

No it doesn’t. The inherent trait is that we’re a pattern- and explanation-seeking species that often prefers a persuasive but wrong answer to no answer at all. Most if not all religious traditions seem to me to have their roots in this phenomenon – why does the volcano erupt or the harvest fail? Because the gods are angry. Why does the world exist? Because a god created it etc. AB for example with his menagerie of gods, souls, devils etc has a simple (and simplistic) narrative that has explanatory value for him, even though it collapses when any sort of intellectual rigour is applied to it.       
"Don't make me come down there."

God