Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

Yes, a great deal of time, effort and money are being spent on trying to correlate conscious awareness with specific neuron activity in the brain, but correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

There'd not be much point in having a brain with which to make choices or to think if that is what the soul is doing.  Why bother with all those trillions of synaptic connections when God can just sort you out with a supernatural soul to do the whole business by magic ?

[Nearly Sane]

A sperm with speedos on is just the sort of image I needed to brighten a shitty day - kudos to you

IIRC Nick Marks once wrote a post which referred to sperm in their Sunday best. His sperm are obviously much more formal than bluehillside's


ETA - Having checked this, I was wrong, it was Stem Cells in their Sunday Best tadpole outfits (obviously)

[Alan Burns]

Aw bless you - I'm glad someone appreciates my efforts here!

I enjoyed reading it too (#11324), though I should add that I would have much rather had a cigar than a French Fancy!

You are a talented writer (of fiction) 

[Alan Burns]

There'd not be much point in having a brain with which to make choices or to think if that is what the soul is doing.  Why bother with all those trillions of synaptic connections when God can just sort you out with a supernatural soul to do the whole business by magic interaction?

FIFY

[Shaker]

You are a talented writer (of fiction) 

Your favourite genre, Alan

[Nearly Sane]

If there was no ultimate cause, nothing would exist.

Apart from being assertion, it is as I pointed out in the post you replied to logically contradictory. If you insist everything needs a cause you create an infinite regress. If you place an ultimate cause as some form of explanation, then the first premise that everything needs a cause is incorrect.

Note in this thread this contradiction has been pointed out multiple times and you continue to ignore it. What am I to conclude? That you have no memory, that you are stupid and don't understand it and ignore it and are therefore lying, or you do understand but have no answer and are ignoring it and are lying, or some other thing for you to suggest? Because at the moment I feel as if keeping on ignoring points made multiple times, is leaning me towards you bring dishonest.

[Alan Burns]

Apart from being assertion, it is as I pointed out in the post you replied to logically contradictory. If you insist everything needs a cause you create an infinite regress. If you place an ultimate cause as some form of explanation, then the first premise that everything needs a cause is incorrect.

Note in this thread this contradiction has been pointed out multiple times and you continue to ignore it. What am I to conclude? That you have no memory, that you are stupid and don't understand it and ignore it and are therefore lying, or you do understand but have no answer and are ignoring it and are lying, or some other thing for you to suggest? Because at the moment I feel as if keeping on ignoring points made multiple times, is leaning me towards you bring dishonest.

We can only deduce that the laws of cause and effect exist in our universe.  The nature of whatever exists outside this universe will be totally unknown to us.

[Nearly Sane]

We can only deduce that the laws of cause and effect exist in our universe.  The nature of whatever laws may exist outside this universe will be totally unknown to us.

For the first part, we might deduce it but it isn't proved but you cannot use it to extend to anything and then say the rule doesn't need to apply. .

[Nearly Sane]

Oh and it should be noted that free will as described by Alan is a violation of his assumption of cause and effect and posits multiple non caused causes.

[Gordon]

We can only deduce that the laws of cause and effect exist in our universe.  The nature of whatever laws may exist outside this universe will be totally unknown to us.

Better to suspend judgment then.

After all you can't deduce (since deduction involves formal logic) that the phrase 'outside this universe' is amenable to deduction. As such, even though you'd like it to be so, that some people in the middle-east who lived in more credulous times, when people were relatively lacking in knowledge but lived in cultures where religious superstitions were rife, claimed one version of 'God' doesn't require you to believe them when to must be obvious to you, from what has been said to you here, that your particular approach to theism is built upon logical fallacies.

[Nearly Sane]

As soon as we posit free will, we destroy the idea of an ultimate cause, leaving aside the internal contradictions of such an idea. We are arguing for an infinite of ultimate causes if the decision is truly free.

[Alan Burns]

Oh and it should be noted that free will as described by Alan is a violation of his assumption of cause and effect and posits multiple non caused causes.

Precisely!
That is why we need a source for free will which is not constrained by the deterministic rules of cause and effect - the human soul, with the spiritual properties of conscious awareness and free will.  The soul sets us free!

[Alan Burns]

As soon as we posit free will, we destroy the idea of an ultimate cause, leaving aside the internal contradictions of such an idea. We are arguing for an infinite of ultimate causes if the decision is truly free.

For a decision to be truly free it needs to be initiated from outside the chain of cause and effect.  A free will event is caused by a conscious act of will.  As the bible says, we are made in the image of God whose will must have interacted with this universe to bring us into existence, just as human will interacts to bring about man made creations.

[Alan Burns]

Better to suspend judgement then.

Not if "that which is outside this universe" has made itself known to us in the life of Jesus.

[Gordon]

Not if "that which is outside this universe" has made itself known to us in the life of Jesus.

You'll be able to demonstrate all this without recourse to your usual farrago of fallacies, won't you!

[torridon]

For a decision to be truly free it needs to be initiated from outside the chain of cause and effect.

Such a choice would not be a choice at all, it would be a random event.  Choices have to have a reason, and that is the cause.  No cause = no reason = random event.  Choices cannot be truly free.

[torridon]

We can only deduce that the laws of cause and effect exist in our universe.  The nature of whatever exists outside this universe will be totally unknown to us.

If there is something beyond our universe, and if the principle of casue and effect does not hold thee, all that indicates is such a place is incomprehensible, so it would be a poor place to look for meaning.

[ippy]

Not if "that which is outside this universe" has made itself known to us in the life of Jesus.

Tell me Alan and all of the other contributors to this thread, when your reply says, "Not if "that which is outside this universe" has made itself known to us in the life of Jesus", how do you or anyone else acquire this knowledge, where does it come from and how do you know, whatever method you say this kind of info is supplied to you, if it is genuine, factual and it can be substantiated?

If these things you say, "are made known to us in the life of Jesus", can be substantiated", how?

ippy

[Alan Burns]

Such a choice would not be a choice at all, it would be a random event.  Choices have to have a reason, and that is the cause.  No cause = no reason = random event.  Choices cannot be truly free.

OK, I should have said that the cause of a free will event can't come from within the cause and effect chain as defined by materialistic behaviour.  The cause of a free will event must come from the conscious will of a person, so until we can define conscious awareness, we can't define the cause of free will.

[Stranger]

But could the blind, natural processes of biology create the amazing entity of conscious self awareness which became you?

Yes.
 

[Alan Burns]

If there is something beyond our universe, and if the principle of casue and effect does not hold thee, all that indicates is such a place is incomprehensible, so it would be a poor place to look for meaning.

Yes, it is incomprehensible to us.  When I read Stephen Hawkins' book "A Brief History of Time" it was fascinating to discover the possibility that time itself is a physical property which began with the Big Bang.  So time as we know it may not exist beyond our universe, which fits in with the Christian concept of God being ever present in the "now" throughout history.  A fascinating concept alluded to in John 8:57-59:

‘You are not yet fifty years old,’ they said to him, ‘and you have seen Abraham!’

 ‘Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’  At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Yes, it is incomprehensible to us.  When I read Stephen Hawkins' book "A Brief History of Time" it was fascinating to discover the possibility that time itself is a physical property which began with the Big Bang.  So time as we know it may not exist beyond our universe, which fits in with the Christian concept of God being ever present in the "now" throughout history.  A fascinating concept alluded to in John 8:57-59:

‘You are not yet fifty years old,’ they said to him, ‘and you have seen Abraham!’

 ‘Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’  At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

"History" is a function of time, and you have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate this "beyond our universe" rather than just assert it as an article of your personal faith beliefs.   

[Alan Burns]

Tell me Alan and all of the other contributors to this thread, when your reply says, "Not if "that which is outside this universe" has made itself known to us in the life of Jesus", how do you or anyone else acquire this knowledge, where does it come from and how do you know, whatever method you say this kind of info is supplied to you, if it is genuine, factual and it can be substantiated?

If these things you say, "are made known to us in the life of Jesus", can be substantiated", how?

All I am implying is that God (ie That which exists ...) made Himself known to us by becoming one of us.  As Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life" - no ordinary being, but God made man.  We can't substantiate this with scientifically controlled methodology, but we can look at the message - that Jesus came to save us from evil and enable us to return to our true home in Heaven. If we really want to be delivered from evil, we can start with an act of faith in Jesus and invite Him into our lives.

[Rhiannon]

A fascinating concept alluded to in John 8:57-59:

No it's not alluded to, Alan. Really. It isn't.

[Shaker]

No it's not alluded to, Alan. Really. It isn't.

That's about the most tortuous and torturous misapprehension of any passage I've seen in a very long time indeed.