Searching for GOD...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm interested to know what an atheist is doing spending several years searching for God. Given Jeremiah 29:13 what is it which confirms your sincerity in your exploits and your conclusion that you have not in fact found God.
Also I am interested in what it is/was that sustained you in your search and finally, given your response you can now laugh at it.

I write as someone who felt attracted to seeking God who, as he got more real and personally relevant, wanted to recoil prior to accepting him.

I never felt any moment of recoil, as you put it, so I can't identify with that. Maybe that is in part because I never felt or encountered anything that seemed personal or real or visceral to recoil from.  My route has been that of someone brought up in a strongly religious home, all strong in the Lord, father a preacher, congregationalist hymn singing and all that, so it was inevitable that I grew up believing in God in the sense that children accept what their parents tell them as true. But I never came to feel any divine external presence in my life nor had any transformational experience such as everyone else around me seemed to have. I had to understand that, and that entailed daring to think outside the box of my upbringing, to work towards an understanding that encompasses the breadth of human experience, not just the born again Christian variety. That's where I am now, still blinking in the daylight, trying to figure stuff out.

In a sense I guess we have that moment of rejection of what we have been told/or led to believe in common. You talked about seeking God. I confess that doesn't come out in your above post....how does the seeking fit in?

Through my teens and twenties, I suppose, the best part of two decades, I was doing that, daily prayer, bible study, fellowship meetings, church attendance etc. By the time I got to my thirties, I was beginning to doubt the whole story, never having had a prayer answered, never having felt any divine presence in the ways that others claimed.  I was beginning to feel like I was praying to a brick wall, how could it be that people like Alan Burns apparently pray and get answers or at least some sort of response almost daily, but I could never elicit anything but complete silence from this God in 20 years ? Where I am now is basically a journey of trying to understand all that and fit in the diverse experiences of other peoples plus what we have learned through research synthesised into a single overarching rationale.

What experiences do you feel the secular world has offered you? For example what do you find different between the fellowship of unbelievers as opposed to the fellowship of believers? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Blue your reply was OK except when you strayed into theology. Then you appeared out of your depth with your charicature presentation.

Well, as you've never yet managed to make a coherent argument to distinguish theology from guessology the ability for anyone to be more "out of his depth" than anyone else is, to say the leat, moot.

Oh, and will you please finally learn to spell "caricature". 

Oh well, another shiny motion for the collection.

Oh well, another Vladism then.

Vladism: noun - use of gratuitous abuse or vulgarity in response to an argument the user cannot understand or counter.

The English/Vladish dictionary, page 256

Random House, Second Ed. (2009)

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Blue your reply was OK except when you strayed into theology. Then you appeared out of your depth with your charicature presentation.

Well, as you've never yet managed to make a coherent argument to distinguish theology from guessology the ability for anyone to be more "out of his depth" than anyone else is, to say the leat, moot.

Oh, and will you please finally learn to spell "caricature". 

Oh well, another shiny motion for the collection.

Oh well, another Vladism then.

Vladism: noun - use of gratuitous abuse or vulgarity in response to an argument the user cannot understand or counter.

The English/Vladish dictionary, page 256

Random House, Second Ed. (2009)

I'm not familiar with guessology.......but coming from you Blue I can guess what that is all about.

I question your guessology though...I'm not sure whether you believe you are immune from guessing.....or whether you would agree with those who say that everything is a guess and even your turds of a punt should be carefully scrutinised.

In terms of vulgarity, I thought I was being very subtle.

Commenting on spelling is completely non secitour

[Enki]

But the word "pattern" implies something which is perceived.  The pattern does not perceive itself.  A pattern is only recognised by the perceiver of that pattern.

The word pattern only implies a perceiver inasmuch as any noun implies a perceiver. If I'm not in the room, the pattern of light on the television doesn't change, it's still the same pattern.

O.

But the patterns of light on a computer screen just exist as individual pixels.  They are only recognised as a pattern by a human observer, and any meaning attached to the pattern resides only in human awareness

Really?

When my dog was younger, it used to see its reflection in the patio doors. I think it is quite sensible to assume that it recognised that pattern as another dog and reacted accordingly. I would suggest that it recognised the pattern as such and any meaning attached to that pattern resided in the dog's(not my) brain. In other words it was aware of another dog, which it saw as a threat.

Now it doesn't bother at all. Whether it has simply learned that this 'other' dog is no threat or realised that it actually isn't there is a moot point, I agree.

However certain animal species do seem to show that they understand the pattern of their reflection as themselves and seem to react with this awareness.

Either way, your idea that patterns are only meaningful to human awareness seems to be incorrect. There is overwhelming evidence that a huge array of animal species give meanings to the patterns that their eyes perceive. Ditto for all the other senses too.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I'm not familiar with guessology.......but coming from you Blue I can guess what that is all about.

Of course you can - your whole belief system rests on it. Can you have forgotten already your, "whatever pops into my head that I then gussy up with the term "intuit" is necessarily an objective fact for you too with no attempt of any kind to describe a method to take the hypothesis from the subjective to the objective" schtick of which your'e so usually so fond?

That's what guessology is.

I question your guessology though...I'm not sure whether you believe you are immune from guessing.....or whether you would agree with those who say that everything is a guess..

And who could forget your heroically hopeless back up schtick of, "OK, I'm guessing but so are you" built on your total incomprehension at the notion that truth is probabilistic, and that probabilities can be derived from intersubjective experience but not from personal "intuition"?

We're getting all the greatest hits of Vladism tonight I see. (By "all", I mean "both" of course.)

...and even your turds of a punt should be carefully scrutinised.

Vladism.

In terms of vulgarity, I thought I was being very subtle.

Then you thought wrongly.

Commenting on spelling is completely non secitour

Whatever else it is, it's not a nun sekwitewer. Would it really kill you finally to figure out what non sequitur actually means?

[Alan Burns]

But the word "pattern" implies something which is perceived.  The pattern does not perceive itself.  A pattern is only recognised by the perceiver of that pattern.

The word pattern only implies a perceiver inasmuch as any noun implies a perceiver. If I'm not in the room, the pattern of light on the television doesn't change, it's still the same pattern.

O.

But the patterns of light on a computer screen just exist as individual pixels.  They are only recognised as a pattern by a human observer, and any meaning attached to the pattern resides only in human awareness

Really?

When my dog was younger, it used to see its reflection in the patio doors. I think it is quite sensible to assume that it recognised that pattern as another dog and reacted accordingly. I would suggest that it recognised the pattern as such and any meaning attached to that pattern resided in the dog's(not my) brain. In other words it was aware of another dog, which it saw as a threat.

Now it doesn't bother at all. Whether it has simply learned that this 'other' dog is no threat or realised that it actually isn't there is a moot point, I agree.

However certain animal species do seem to show that they understand the pattern of their reflection as themselves and seem to react with this awareness.

Either way, your idea that patterns are only meaningful to human awareness seems to be incorrect. There is overwhelming evidence that a huge array of animal species give meanings to the patterns that their eyes perceive. Ditto for all the other senses too.

I do not see how you can differentiate between reaction and conscious perception in the case of animals, since we cannot converse with them to find out.  To attach meaning to anything will require conscious perception, but reaction can be achieved through instinct and learnt behaviour.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

I'm not familiar with guessology.......but coming from you Blue I can guess what that is all about.

Of course you can - your whole belief system rests on it.

I have a whole belief system? What is it?........

.............Hillshit  to follow.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I do not see how you can differentiate between reaction and conscious perception in the case of animals, since we cannot converse with them to find out.  To attach meaning to anything will require conscious perception, but reaction can be achieved through instinct and learnt behaviour.

First, you’ve committed another logical error – the burden of proof fallacy. If for some reason you think the human experience of consciousness to be qualitatively different from that of other animals, then it’s for you to make a case for that difference. Given the physiological similarities between us and some other species, the same responses to various stimuli (adrenalin production when alarmed, similar MRI scan results in response to various stimuli) etc the presumption must be that there is no such fundamental difference. Inasmuch as we do differ those difference are merely on a spectrum.

If nonetheless you think our species arbitrarily to be in a separate category of conscious experience, then it’s for you to make the case for it.

Second, there’s increasing evidence that contradicts you.  Look at Nim, Washoe and Koko for example – other members of the great apes family who were taught to use sign language and who showed remarkable sophistication, empathy, depth of feeling etc.

While you are of course entitled to hold any opinions you wish, you cannot just keep making up facts of your own to support them when you feel like it.

[Leonard James]

While you are of course entitled to hold any opinions you wish, but you cannot just keep making up facts of your own to support them when you feel like it.

I wouldn't bet on that! Alan is very experienced at it.

[torridon]

I'm interested to know what an atheist is doing spending several years searching for God. Given Jeremiah 29:13 what is it which confirms your sincerity in your exploits and your conclusion that you have not in fact found God.
Also I am interested in what it is/was that sustained you in your search and finally, given your response you can now laugh at it.

I write as someone who felt attracted to seeking God who, as he got more real and personally relevant, wanted to recoil prior to accepting him.

I never felt any moment of recoil, as you put it, so I can't identify with that. Maybe that is in part because I never felt or encountered anything that seemed personal or real or visceral to recoil from.  My route has been that of someone brought up in a strongly religious home, all strong in the Lord, father a preacher, congregationalist hymn singing and all that, so it was inevitable that I grew up believing in God in the sense that children accept what their parents tell them as true. But I never came to feel any divine external presence in my life nor had any transformational experience such as everyone else around me seemed to have. I had to understand that, and that entailed daring to think outside the box of my upbringing, to work towards an understanding that encompasses the breadth of human experience, not just the born again Christian variety. That's where I am now, still blinking in the daylight, trying to figure stuff out.

In a sense I guess we have that moment of rejection of what we have been told/or led to believe in common. You talked about seeking God. I confess that doesn't come out in your above post....how does the seeking fit in?

Through my teens and twenties, I suppose, the best part of two decades, I was doing that, daily prayer, bible study, fellowship meetings, church attendance etc. By the time I got to my thirties, I was beginning to doubt the whole story, never having had a prayer answered, never having felt any divine presence in the ways that others claimed.  I was beginning to feel like I was praying to a brick wall, how could it be that people like Alan Burns apparently pray and get answers or at least some sort of response almost daily, but I could never elicit anything but complete silence from this God in 20 years ? Where I am now is basically a journey of trying to understand all that and fit in the diverse experiences of other peoples plus what we have learned through research synthesised into a single overarching rationale.

What experiences do you feel the secular world has offered you? For example what do you find different between the fellowship of unbelievers as opposed to the fellowship of believers?

There is no 'fellowship' between unbelievers, or at least not in the sense that you get in faith communities. Of course we do come together in secret after dark to sing our praises to the great Dawk.  But seriously, that is one of the strengths of faith communities, strong bonds that engender trust and mutual support within the group.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I have a whole belief system? What is it?........

I just told you:

Vladology: noun The assertion that whatever pops into the proponent’s head is necessarily factually true for other people too. Sometimes combined with a fallacious attempt at credibility by replacing “pops into” with “intuit”. Never supported by a method to go from subjective opinion to objective fact.

“The Compendium of False Reasoning and Poor Thinking”, p 628

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 4th Ed. 1989

.............Hillshit  to follow.

Vladism.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

 Can you have forgotten already your, "whatever pops into my head that I then gussy up with the term "intuit"

I don't think I've said whatever pops into my head is intuited wisdom, like any normal person I recognise that some what pops into my head is guessology because I am actively guessing it. I don't recognise passive guessing at all. Have you made that up to suit your turd of an argument?

If there is anyone here who is not self critical it is more likely to be you.

So let's have Hillside's wisdom then.........let's see the Hillside Homonculus / caricature of a believer....if you have the guts to bring your ideas under scrutiny.

[jeremyp]

I'm not familiar with guessology

Yes you are. Religion is guessology.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm not familiar with guessology

Yes you are. Religion is guessology.

Are you using the definition of guessology as in making a statement which a philosophical naturalist, he won't own up to being one,.............would not find acceptable? (edited on request)

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I don't think I've said whatever pops into my head is intuited wisdom…

Yes you have. For reasons known only to yourself, you think the word “intuit” somehow adds lustre to your just guessing at stuff. How would you propose to differentiate the two given your abject failure to provide a method of any kind to do so?

…like any normal person I recognise that some what pops into my head is guessology because I am actively guessing it. I don't recognise passive guessing at all. Have you made that up to suit your turd of an argument?

No, but you have. That you don’t understand that the things you think you “intuit” are indistinguishable from guessing for the rest of us is your problem, not ours. Would you believe anything I felt like claiming because I told you that I’d “passively” decided it was true than “actively” guessed at it?

The process by which you arrive at your guess makes no difference – it’s still a guess.

If there is anyone here who is not self critical it is more likely to be you.

Un-argued and un-evidenced accusation noted. I see that you and irony are still strangers then.

So let's have Hillside's wisdom then.........let's see the Hillside Homonculus / caricature of a believer....if you have the guts to bring your ideas under scrutiny.

You seem to have forgotten that I’ve answered pretty much every one of the questions you and others have ever asked, whereas you’ve never felt the need to do so, preferring obfuscation, prevarication, irrelevance, insult, vulgarity and the rest of the panoply of avoidance tactics you cling to.
 
Which of us is it that you think to be gutless again?

Good grief!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Are you using the definition of guessology as in making a statement which a philosophical naturalist, he won't own up to being one,.............would not find acceptable.

Way to go Vlad - when you lose, lose big.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

I don't think I've said whatever pops into my head is intuited wisdom…

Yes you have.

What? whatever as in everything? are you serious? are you so afraid of losing control of your own id...that you have to project that onto me?

Grow up.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

I don't think I've said whatever pops into my head is intuited wisdom…

Yes you have. For reasons known only to yourself, you think the word “intuit” somehow adds lustre to your just guessing at stuff. How would you propose to differentiate the two given your abject failure to provide a method of any kind to do so?

…like any normal person I recognise that some what pops into my head is guessology because I am actively guessing it. I don't recognise passive guessing at all. Have you made that up to suit your turd of an argument?

No, but you have. That you don’t understand that the things you think you “intuit” are indistinguishable from guessing for the rest of us is your problem, not ours. Would you believe anything I felt like claiming because I told you that I’d “passively” decided it was true than “actively” guessed at it?

The process by which you arrive at your guess makes no difference – it’s still a guess.

If there is anyone here who is not self critical it is more likely to be you.

Un-argued and un-evidenced accusation noted. I see that you and irony are still strangers then.

So let's have Hillside's wisdom then.........let's see the Hillside Homonculus / caricature of a believer....if you have the guts to bring your ideas under scrutiny.

You seem to have forgotten that I’ve answered pretty much every one of the questions you and others have ever asked, whereas you’ve never felt the need to do so, preferring obfuscation, prevarication, irrelevance, insult, vulgarity and the rest of the panoply of avoidance tactics you cling to.
 
Which of us is it that you think to be gutless again?

Good grief!

Have you got any evidence on this forum of self criticism?

[Alan Burns]

First, you’ve committed another logical error – the burden of proof fallacy. If for some reason you think the human experience of consciousness to be qualitatively different from that of other animals, then it’s for you to make a case for that difference. Given the physiological similarities between us and some other species, the same responses to various stimuli (adrenalin production when alarmed, similar MRI scan results in response to various stimuli) etc the presumption must be that there is no such fundamental difference. Inasmuch as we do differ those difference are merely on a spectrum.

If nonetheless you think our species arbitrarily to be in a separate category of conscious experience, then it’s for you to make the case for it.

Second, there’s increasing evidence that contradicts you.  Look at Nim, Washoe and Koko for example – other members of the great apes family who were taught to use sign language and who showed remarkable sophistication, empathy, depth of feeling etc.

While you are of course entitled to hold any opinions you wish, you cannot just keep making up facts of your own to support them when you feel like it.

If you can produce an animal that can demonstrate belief (or disbelief) in God, I will concede that there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals.

[Leonard James]

If you can produce an animal that can demonstrate belief (or disbelief) in God, I will concede that there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals.

And if you can produce this "God" you believe in, we will concede that he exists.

[Alan Burns]

So far as I can tell, Alan Burns's position is: "OK, lots of complicated things can arise as emergent properties of simpler components. I also have a personal faith in something I call "god" that requires the existence of an intangible "something" I call a "soul" to hang together. Consciousness looks really complicated to me, so I'll decide arbitrarily that it's too complicated for it to be an emergent property, and thenI'll retro-fit my soul hypothesis to explain it."

It's all hopeless reasoning I know, but it seems to be all he has.

You seem to be putting a lot of faith into the capabilities of emergent properties, which you claim to give us conscious awareness and an illusion of free will.

Is it not the case that it is secular logic which is causing some people to retro fit their concept of reality into pretending that free will is an illusion?

[Alan Burns]

If you can produce an animal that can demonstrate belief (or disbelief) in God, I will concede that there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals.

And if you can produce this "God" you believe in, we will concede that he exists.

We have Jesus

[Maeght]

If you can produce an animal that can demonstrate belief (or disbelief) in God, I will concede that there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals.

And if you can produce this "God" you believe in, we will concede that he exists.

We have Jesus

You have the stories about someone known as Jesus you mean.

[Nearly Sane]

So far as I can tell, Alan Burns's position is: "OK, lots of complicated things can arise as emergent properties of simpler components. I also have a personal faith in something I call "god" that requires the existence of an intangible "something" I call a "soul" to hang together. Consciousness looks really complicated to me, so I'll decide arbitrarily that it's too complicated for it to be an emergent property, and thenI'll retro-fit my soul hypothesis to explain it."

It's all hopeless reasoning I know, but it seems to be all he has.

You seem to be putting a lot of faith into the capabilities of emergent properties, which you claim to give us conscious awareness and an illusion of free will.

Is it not the case that it is secular logic which is causing some people to retro fit their concept of reality into pretending that free will is an illusion?

It's just logic, not secular logic. You should try it sometime

[torridon]

Is it not the case that it is secular logic which is causing some people to retro fit their concept of reality into pretending that free will is an illusion?

There is no such thing as 'secular logic', there is just logic, and the notion of free will is not just un-evidenced in a scientific sense, it is ultimately logically incoherent, meaningless.