Searching for GOD...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

There you go again with the candy-floss-pink, cotton-woolly , smothering blanket which hides people from the freshness, wonder, excitement  and clarity of reality.

Really....unless you have an objective morality then yours has been pulled extra anally.....what is reality about that?

[Gonnagle]

Dear Susan,

There you go again with the candy-floss-pink, cotton-woolly , smothering blanket which hides people from the freshness, wonder, excitement  and clarity of reality.

What I find wonderful, Alan talking about free will and our Leonard telling him it is just fate, one of them is right, and right now I tend to agree with Leonard, we don't choose the cards we are dealt, oh and by the way, your reader thing, does it pick up on smiley's, emoticons, I am a lazy sod and use them all the time.

Gonnagle.

[Alan Burns]

Dear Gonnagle,

...  we don't choose the cards we are dealt.

But we can choose the cards we deal out.   

[Gonnagle]

Dear Alan,

But we can choose the cards we deal out.

Well for me that is where it goes all fuzzy, on one level I know I have free will on another, how we deal those cards depends on what kind of person you are and what kind of person you are depends on the cards you are dealt and............................................................................................it is turtles all the way down

Gonnagle.

[SusanDoris]

Gonnagle

On this forum, the voice says 'p' or 'o', or 'greater than', etc, but I think I have the general idea of them.

[Alan Burns]

Dear Alan,

Well for me that is where it goes all fuzzy, on one level I know I have free will on another, how we deal those cards depends on what kind of person you are and what kind of person you are depends on the cards you are dealt and............................................................................................it is turtles all the way down

Gonnagle.

I suppose I should have said:

We can choose which cards we deal out.

And I have witnessed just how much people can change the cards they deal after they have found God.

[floo]

I suppose I should have said:

We can choose which cards we deal out.

And I have witnessed just how much people can change the cards they deal after they have found God.

And sometimes for the worse!

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

I find that it is even numbers that have a middle for me because of 0

Wrong thread old chap

Dear Susan,

 

Dear Alan,

And I have witnessed just how much people can change the cards they deal after they have found God.

Oh yes!! some for the greater glory of God, some, well I think he rues the day he gave up the smiting business.

Gonnagle.

[ekim]

Dear Alan,

Well for me that is where it goes all fuzzy, on one level I know I have free will on another, how we deal those cards depends on what kind of person you are and what kind of person you are depends on the cards you are dealt and............................................................................................it is turtles all the way down

Gonnagle.

Perhaps the freedom comes from maintaining inner equilibrium in the midst of the life's events which are dealt you, something like a wind surfer does when he is in the midst of forces he cannot control.  Despite the strength of wind, the challenging waves and water currents, he learns how to maintain balance and uses those forces to his advantage and is exhilarated and enlivened by the experience.  Or as Jesus said 'Learn from me the balance of heart and mind and you shall find peace of mind, for my balance is easy and what I carry is light.'

[Maeght]

And I have witnessed just how much people can change the cards they deal after they have found God.

Having something to believe in can certainly have a changing effect on people.

[Gonnagle]

Dear ekim,

'Learn from me the balance of heart and mind and you shall find peace of mind, for my balance is easy and what I carry is light.'

Thank you Mathew 11:28-30, yes? funny that the Lord chooses non Christians to open up the Gospels to me

Gonnagle.

[torridon]

Perhaps the freedom comes from maintaining inner equilibrium in the midst of the life's events which are dealt you, something like a wind surfer does when he is in the midst of forces he cannot control.  Despite the strength of wind, the challenging waves and water currents, he learns how to maintain balance and uses those forces to his advantage and is exhilarated and enlivened by the experience.  Or as Jesus said 'Learn from me the balance of heart and mind and you shall find peace of mind, for my balance is easy and what I carry is light.'

nice post, that 

[ippy]

There you go again with the candy-floss-pink, cotton-woolly , smothering blanket which hides people from the freshness, wonder, excitement  and clarity of reality.

Wish I had written this post of yours S D, it's  good one, I love succinct, wish I was better at it, succinct that is.

Regards ippy

[SusanDoris]

Thank you, Ippy. What I'd like to do one of these days is to write something witty!!

[ippy]

Thank you, Ippy. What I'd like to do one of these days is to write something witty!!

Our Lord Sam harris one of the atheist saints: If you're taking an interview for a job and somehow it gets mentioned your belief that Elvis is still around?

Another job interview: Somehow it gets mentioned your belief that Jesus is still alive?

What's the factual difference?

It's a crazy old world we live in, anyone that thinks Elvis is still around would be better off not to mention it at a job interview.

If anyone mentions something about some religious figure or another at a job interview, oh that's religion we'll let that one go by, why when either one is as likely as the other?

ippy
ippy     

[Leonard James]

Dear Gonnagle,But we can choose the cards we deal out.   

Too true, Alan! I very often have to suppress the ones I feel like dealing out as too obnoxious, and choose something milder. 

[Alan Burns]

Too true, Alan! I very often have to suppress the ones I feel like dealing out as too obnoxious, and choose something milder. 

Me too Len   

[floo]

Too true, Alan! I very often have to suppress the ones I feel like dealing out as too obnoxious, and choose something milder. 

Leonard, you are a far better role model than the Biblical deity and some of its followers!

[Outrider]

Really ? I believe it has been most successful in demonstrating the lack of Phlogiston.

Science proved what was there didn't behave as phlogiston should - you could therefore deduce that phlogiston didn't exist, but science can't prove that it isn't somewhere.

On another matter if science is unhappy with the lack of soul........Is it any happier with the term Illusion of self?

I wasn't aware that science was unhappy with the lack of a soul, any more than it expresses any sort of emotion at the understanding that the 'self' is an artificial construct. I'm sure you thought you had a point, any chance of explaining what it was?

O.

[Leonard James]

Leonard, you are a far better role model than the Biblical deity and some of its followers!

 

Thank you Roses! I confess that I find some of the things attributed to "God" extremely distasteful.

[floo]

Thank you Roses! I confess that I find some of the things attributed to "God" extremely distasteful.

I meant every word of it Leonard, you are one of the good guys.

If the deity actually exists and is nothing like its unpleasant depiction in the not so good book, it must be very upset that so much nastiness is attributed to it, but is powerless to right the situation!

[Leonard James]

If the deity actually exists and is nothing like its unpleasant depiction in the not so good book, it must be very upset that so much nastiness is attributed to it, but is powerless to right the situation!

Giving the lie to the claim that it is "God-breathed". 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Science proved what was there didn't behave as phlogiston should - you could therefore deduce that phlogiston didn't exist, but science can't prove that it isn't somewhere.

I wasn't aware that science was unhappy with the lack of a soul, any more than it expresses any sort of emotion at the understanding that the 'self' is an artificial construct. I'm sure you thought you had a point, any chance of explaining what it was?

O.

Artificial construct? How can you have an artificial construct in nature?

[ippy]

Artificial construct? How can you have an artificial construct in nature?

Something like this god idea, an artificial construct, constructed by others and you've adopted it into your mind?

ippy

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlunderer,

Sane.....I'm not sure old son, but I think you might just be guilty of the dreaded methodological /philosophical materialist conflation.

There isn't one. The schtick depends entirely on your straw men versions of these things, which is why the rest of us can safely ignore it.

Does science actually evidence a lack of a soul yet? Has science actually solved the problem posed by the P zombie yet ? I rather think not in both cases.

Science doesn't evidence the lack of anything - especially when those "anythings" are deliberately set up so as to be beyond the purview of science. Rather it examines the claims some make and determines whether or not here's sufficient evidence to treat them as more probably true than not.   

To be operating on an ''Oh but it will'' isn't good enough.

Another straw man - no-one suggest that science will "evidence the lack of" something for which there's no definition, no logical case and no evidence to examine.

I think you might have to sit on the naughty step with the reductionist materialists like Hillside who let's face it has being doing a hell of a lot of gussying up on this thread..

Presumably that meant something in your head when you typed it?