Searching for GOD...

[Shaker]

Network

'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore'

And on that The Waltons

'Goodnight, Mary Ellen'

We have our grandaughter staying with us at the moment, while her Dad has just today been looking at mountain gorillas in Uganda. She is 12 going on thirteen, and I've just said goodnight to her. as usual with  'Goodnight Mary Ellen' and she still has enough of the child in her to respond 'Goodnight, John Boy'. To me that is a precious moment, which alas will disappear all too quickly. For me, no God needed.

And why can't you have God as well?

No need.

Extraneous.

Superfluous.

Doesn't add anything.

Etc.

[Rhiannon]

I still say 'God bless' to my kids every night even though none of us has the faintest idea what I mean by it.

[BashfulAnthony]

Network

'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore'

And on that The Waltons

'Goodnight, Mary Ellen'

We have our grandaughter staying with us at the moment, while her Dad has just today been looking at mountain gorillas in Uganda. She is 12 going on thirteen, and I've just said goodnight to her. as usual with  'Goodnight Mary Ellen' and she still has enough of the child in her to respond 'Goodnight, John Boy'. To me that is a precious moment, which alas will disappear all too quickly. For me, no God needed.

And why can't you have God as well?

No need.

Extraneous.

Superfluous.

Doesn't add anything.

Etc.

I'm really surprised to hear that  -  not.

[BashfulAnthony]

I still say 'God bless' to my kids every night even though none of us has the faintest idea what I mean by it.

Then you should explain what you mean to them.

[Rhiannon]

I still say 'God bless' to my kids every night even though none of us has the faintest idea what I mean by it.

Then you should explain what you mean to them.

If I knew I would. 

[BashfulAnthony]

I still say 'God bless' to my kids every night even though none of us has the faintest idea what I mean by it.

Then you should explain what you mean to them.

If I knew I would. 

Perhaps a little research, then?

Alternatively, since none of you know what the heck you're talking about, you could think of another way to say good night?   

[Rhiannon]

Yeah, it's not like I don't know what God is supposed to be. I can also throw in a bit about The God (as opposed to The Goddess). But what I mean by 'God' and 'bless' I can't say.

[Rhiannon]

Anyway, night night, God bless all. 

[BashfulAnthony]

Anyway, night night, God bless all. 

God bless you  -  and I do know what I mean by that.   

[Shaker]

Yeah, it's not like I don't know what God is supposed to be. I can also throw in a bit about The God (as opposed to The Goddess). But what I mean by 'God' and 'bless' I can't say.

I have an idea.

According to my idea I think it means something like "I want you to be whole, healthy and happy in all ways at all times in whatever you do. I hope no harm - anything unpleasant or distressing - befalls you in any way."

There seems to be a residual idea still at work in many theists that an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing god is just the sort of thing which would be capable of creating such a state of affairs. And they're right; such a being would be capable of creating such a state of affairs.

But such a state of affairs does not exist. People suffer, some of them a bit, some of them quite a lot and some of them horribly.

So ... people, for some reason, continue to debate religious ideas, because religious people are those who continue to insist that 2 + 2 = 5.

[Leonard James]

Yeah, it's not like I don't know what God is supposed to be. I can also throw in a bit about The God (as opposed to The Goddess). But what I mean by 'God' and 'bless' I can't say.

I have an idea.

According to my idea I think it means something like "I want you to be whole, healthy and happy in all ways at all times in whatever you do. I hope no harm - anything unpleasant or distressing - befalls you in any way."

There seems to be a residual idea still at work in many theists that an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing god is just the sort of thing which would be capable of creating such a state of affairs. And they're right; such a being would be capable of creating such a state of affairs.

But such a state of affairs does not exist. People suffer, some of them a bit, some of them quite a lot and some of them horribly.

So ... people, for some reason, continue to debate religious ideas, because religious people are those who continue to insist that 2 + 2 = 5.

For goodness' sake stop with the logical thinking, you'll make their heads ache.

(Cue BA to make some childish remark about my slavishness to you,)

[torridon]

One of the problems is the conscious agent.   Where is it?  What is it?  People who support free will tend to just say, it's me, here I am, choosing freely to do something.   But that doesn't really demonstrate it.   

Same with the soul, which I suppose AB is connecting with free will.   Show it to me.

It shows itself through conscious awareness of what is going on in your brain.  Each atom within each brain cell is just acting like a cog in a big machine (see Leibniz's Mill argument below).  There can be no central awareness within these atoms and brain cells.  The collective activity of all the molecules and brain cells can only be percieved by something outside these cells - the human soul.

In Section 17 of the Monadology Leibniz presents
an argument that is concerned with the relationship between mentality and machines.  This passage is often referred to as Leibniz's “mill argument.”
It runs as follows:
Moreover, we must confess that perception, and what depends upon it, is inexplicable in terms of mechanical reasons, that is through shapes, size and motions. If we imagine that there is a machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions, we could conceive it enlarged, keeping the same proportions, so that we could enter into it, as one enters a mill. Assuming that, when inspecting its interior, we will find only parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception. And so, one should seek perception in the simple substance and not in the composite or in the machine.

Go down that road, and you are back to accepting that the goose has a soul also then. Its not just humans, all conscious animals have conscious perception (as well as subconcious perception, obviously). In all higher mammalian and reptilian brains - there is a similar process going on, seamlessly and silently converting and integrating sensory input stuff - blood flow, bioelectrical nerve impulses, ionic gradients  - into feelings, into a holoistic integrated inner experience stream.  That is the hard part to understand, and it happens in all animals, not just humans.

[Alan Burns]

Its not just humans, all conscious animals have conscious perception (as well as subconcious perception, obviously).

You can't say that for certain unless you can enter the mind of an animal.  All we can say is that their external behaviour might indicate that they have conscious perception.  The external behaviour may just be automated reactions to the environment, and we could show that this is possible by program logic which can simulate such behaviour.  And I see no indication that animals have free will.

[Spud]

We are not omniscient

But we know before we have our kids that they will sometimes be naughty.

But we do not chose to create them naughty. The analogy doesn't work because your God choses that we will need to be punished.

But there's an element in the story of God not being omniscient- like he was waiting to see which tree Adam would go for. Eg, 'who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree...etc'. There's no hint of him knowing what they would do.

Well, you have just driven a huge wedge into Christian theology.   If God didn't know where Adam was, what does he know?

Compare Genesis 18:20-21.

[floo]

More stupidity from the not so good book!

[Gonnagle]

Dear Nutters,

Over a thousand posts arguing about God and then the thread floats into rainy days and beautiful thoughts, stop searching, you have found him/her/it.

God is in the fine detail, yes even the ugly fine detail.

Gonnagle.

[jjohnjil]

Dear Nutters,

Over a thousand posts arguing about God and then the thread floats into rainy days and beautiful thoughts, stop searching, you have found him/her/it.

God is in the fine detail, yes even the ugly fine detail.

Gonnagle.

I think you're right, Gonners.

[Rhiannon]

Dear Nutters,

Over a thousand posts arguing about God and then the thread floats into rainy days and beautiful thoughts, stop searching, you have found him/her/it.

God is in the fine detail, yes even the ugly fine detail.

Gonnagle.

Hence pantheism. 

[jjohnjil]

Dear Nutters,

Over a thousand posts arguing about God and then the thread floats into rainy days and beautiful thoughts, stop searching, you have found him/her/it.

God is in the fine detail, yes even the ugly fine detail.

Gonnagle.

Hence pantheism. 

So it looks as if we've both been wrong all these years, Gonn!

[Alan Burns]

Dear Nutters,

Over a thousand posts arguing about God and then the thread floats into rainy days and beautiful thoughts, stop searching, you have found him/her/it.

God is in the fine detail, yes even the ugly fine detail.

Gonnagle.

but it is only a glimpse of the real thing

[Nearly Sane]

Wrong is such a strange word, lost, confused, birling, up, down, turnaround seem better. Right seems very scary; it has that cold, silent judgement that has no feeling.

[Nearly Sane]

Ah the idea that a 'glimpse' is anything that one can know. What an empty vacuous position that is with its ridiculous grandious posturing. Effortlessly appealing to internal experience and using anyone who might feel the same or sound like it, but in a piece of utter hypocrisy ignoring and dismissing the experience of those who have different experience. It's based on an illogical position somewhat is a lie about the claim.

[Gonnagle]

Dear jjohn,

How are you old son wrong, me, never!! And yes the struggle with the ego is a ongoing battle.

Gonnagle.

[jjohnjil]

Dear jjohn,

How are you old son wrong, me, never!! And yes the struggle with the ego is a ongoing battle.

Gonnagle.

Nothing wrong with your ego, you old haggis!  If only there were a few more like you, eh?

[Rhiannon]

Ah the idea that a 'glimpse' is anything that one can know. What an empty vacuous position that is with its ridiculous grandious posturing. Effortlessly appealing to internal experience and using anyone who might feel the same or sound like it, but in a piece of utter hypocrisy ignoring and dismissing the experience of those who have different experience. It's based on an illogical position somewhat is a lie about the claim.

I think Alan is onto something, but perhaps not in the way he means. Gonners said we'd stopped the intellectual back and forth and paused to feel the rain on our faces. That is the glimpse, the glimpse of losing our stories and our illusions of you and me, but today we will be back to believing our ideas and arguments and forgetting just to be still beneath the stars.