Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

I am aware that the simplest explanation is usually the best, but in the absence of any scientific explanation for free will and conscious awareness, I have done my best.

Since you still don't have any explanation for free will and conscious awareness, it's not really got you very far, has it...?

[Gordon]

I am aware that the simplest explanation is usually the best, but in the absence of any scientific explanation for free will and conscious awareness, I have done my best.
 

Even so, you are, as they say, up the creek without a paddle.

You don't have an 'explanation' since you haven't advanced anything that merits explaining. All you have is a fallacious narrative that you imagine is intelligible in some peculiar 'sciency' way, which you advance as a hook to hang you personal brand of faith on: I suspect this is because you really don't want to come across as being a simple hallelujah merchant which, ironically, in view of your credulity, is exactly how you present.

If you were really on to something you'd have been headhunted by prestigious neurology departments well before now and you'd have a profile on a par with the odious William Lane Craig. You'll no doubt strive to ensure you are suitably ring-fenced in multiple fallacies, but hopefully one day the penny will drop for you yet.

[floo]

That's not the same as them being the same though floo.

The brain provides consciousness, what more do you want?

[SusanDoris]

Nothing but assertion, then.

Couched in gobbledegook too, especially when the word 'quantum' is used a couple of times.

[wigginhall]

I must assume that the spiritual will of the soul can interact with the physical brain via events occurring at the quantum level.  This could explain why certain quantum events have no detectable cause in current science, and it would also allow for events to occur which are not part of the "cause and effect" chain, thus providing true freedom of conscious choice to be made by the will of our soul.  I have no way of proving this of course, but it does provide a possible explanation for my concept of reality.  And bear in mind that I believe conscious awareness itself is a spiritual property of the soul, so there would be a two way interaction between the soul and the brain to provide both awareness and free will.

What awful gobbledygook, as others have said.  I might as well say that gravity operates by angels pulling things downwards, all in a quantum way of course. 

It is not an explanation at all, since it has no empirical basis.   

There's also the point that Christianity is considerably discredited by such meanderings.  And then AB wonders why no-one is being converted by his 'arguments'!

[Nearly Sane]

I must assume that the spiritual will of the soul can interact with the physical brain via events occurring at the quantum level.  This could explain why certain quantum events have no detectable cause in current science, and it would also allow for events to occur which are not part of the "cause and effect" chain, thus providing true freedom of conscious choice to be made by the will of our soul.  I have no way of proving this of course, but it does provide a possible explanation for my concept of reality.  And bear in mind that I believe conscious awareness itself is a spiritual property of the soul, so there would be a two way interaction between the soul and the brain to provide both awareness and free will.

I will quote myself on this use of quantum

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=9431.50

[wigginhall]

The comical thing is that AB sounds like some naff New Age people who go on about quantum therapy and the quantum changes you can make in your life, after paying me a large fee, plus VAT, of course.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Wigs,

 A

nd then AB wonders why no-one is being converted by his 'arguments'!

Oh! he has certainly converted me, just wondering what type to choose, angry, anti, arrogant, EVIDENCE EVIDENCE, where's yer evidence ya Christian numpties

Gonnagle.

[wigginhall]

Dear Wigs,

 A
Oh! he has certainly converted me, just wondering what type to choose, angry, anti, arrogant, EVIDENCE EVIDENCE, where's yer evidence ya Christian numpties

Gonnagle.

I just think that AB makes Christianity look idiotic.   Well, no doubt some atheists would say that it is idiotic, but I don't think all of it is.   It's when people start trying to use sciencey stuff to justify it, that they look daft.

[Shaker]

And then AB wonders why no-one is being converted by his 'arguments'!

That's Satan's doing, apparently.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

I just think that AB makes Christianity look idiotic.   Well, no doubt some atheists would say that it is idiotic, but I don't think all of it is.   It's when people start trying to use sciencey stuff to justify it, that they look daft.

By fundamentally misunderstanding or misrepresenting what science actually tells us much as a WLC, Deepak Chopra etc are won't to do what Alan (and they) do I think is to make their versions of Christianity look idiotic. Does that make Christianity itself idiotic? Dunno - I happen to think that it probably is, but it'd be a mistake in reasoning to think that a proposition is necessarily idiotic just because the arguments made by its advocates are idiotic.

I just wish that someone could point me toward a "true for you too" Christian whose arguments for it are not idiotic is all...

[Dicky Underpants]

I will quote myself on this use of quantum

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=9431.50

Not sure it's much of an advance on Descartes and his presumed function of the pineal gland.

[wigginhall]

Not sure it's much of an advance on Descartes and his presumed function of the pineal gland.

You could argue that Descartes' ideas have led to all the wacky stuff about the soul, as if it was a kind of ghostly penumbra floating around.   Ironically, some of Aristotle's ideas, e.g. that the soul is the form of the body, seem more interesting and workable really, but then people get bogged down in Aquinas, and then you don't see them for 20 years, when they emerge looking bedraggled and raving mad.

[Dicky Underpants]

You could argue that Descartes' ideas have led to all the wacky stuff about the soul, as if it was a kind of ghostly penumbra floating around.   Ironically, some of Aristotle's ideas, e.g. that the soul is the form of the body, seem more interesting and workable really, but then people get bogged down in Aquinas, and then you don't see them for 20 years, when they emerge looking bedraggled and raving mad.

The people look bedraggled and loony, or the ideas?

[wigginhall]

The people look bedraggled and loony, or the ideas?

Well, both.

[ekim]

Wiggs,


I just wish that someone could point me toward a "true for you too" Christian whose arguments for it are not idiotic is all...

Highly unlikely as Christianity is a belief not the truth.  Jesus wasn't a Christian.  He was a Jew who provided a method to discover the truth of the Kingdom of Heaven within.  To find out whether it is 'true for you too' you have to follow the method, even then few find it and many fall by the wayside, so it is said.

[Dicky Underpants]

Highly unlikely as Christianity is a belief not the truth.  Jesus wasn't a Christian.  He was a Jew who provided a method to discover the truth of the Kingdom of Heaven within.  To find out whether it is 'true for you too' you have to follow the method, even then few find it and many fall by the wayside, so it is said.

I'm afraid even those assertions are debatable, ekim. Even the Kingdom of heaven matter depends on a possible mistranslation.

[wigginhall]

I'm afraid even those assertions are debatable, ekim. Even the Kingdom of heaven matter depends on a possible mistranslation.

I think some Christians object vehemently to that little word 'within', as for them, it takes you off into New Age la la land.  Well, it sort of does. 

[Alan Burns]

EVIDENCE EVIDENCE, where's yer evidence ya Christian numpties

Dear Gonnagle,

The evidence is within all of us.  We think, we perceive, we interact, we make choices, we form opinions, we share ideas on discussion boards.  We are all amazing examples of God's creativity!

[ekim]

I'm afraid even those assertions are debatable, ekim. Even the Kingdom of heaven matter depends on a possible mistranslation.

Yes, of course.  Everything is debatable, but unless somebody employs the method to see whether there is any truth in it, the debate will just go around in circles.  If I want to know what a particular perfume smells like and somebody tells me where it is, the easiest way is to go and find it and have a sniff rather than debate it.  Of course, I might have to clear out any blockages I might have first.  As I see it, even though I'm not a Christian, Jesus' method is partly about clearing out mental blockages.

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

Yes, of course.  Everything is debatable, but unless somebody employs the method to see whether there is any truth in it, the debate will just go around in circles.  If I want to know what a particular perfume smells like and somebody tells me where it is, the easiest way is to go and find it and have a sniff rather than debate it.  Of course, I might have to clear out any blockages I might have first.  As I see it, even though I'm not a Christian, Jesus' method is partly about clearing out mental blockages.

But the problem with following "Jesus's method" and finding that it works is that others will follow Allah's method and, for all I know, Colin the Leprechaun's method and will get the same results - every bit as genuinely and profoundly felt. How then should any of these people distinguish the truth value of their claim from those of the others?

All that a method that's persuasive gives you is a method that's persuasive - it says nothing to the content.

[Leonard James]

I love the analogy, Torri, but still can't agree with you.

What makes you think that we are restrained in any way at all? We can do anything we like within the borders of possibility, but that doesn't make the world meaningless or incomprehensible.


All laws obey the overarching principle of cause and effect, so I try to understand things in that context.  That translates as - everything happens for a reason, that includes choices that people make, they must be made for a reason and that relationship makes all our choices subject to the law of cause and effect. We might frequently do things for no apparent reason, but that is not the same thing as no reason. Apparent spontaneity might be ineffable but that shouldn't be surprising given that 95% of brain function is ineffable, it is below the level of our awareness.

The cause of me making a choice is my decision to do so. Nothing can oblige me to make a specific decision ... except of course the confines of possibility.

[Stranger]

The evidence is within all of us.  We think, we perceive, we interact, we make choices, we form opinions, we share ideas on discussion boards.  We are all amazing examples of God's creativity!

Back to churning out assertions, without even the pretence of justification...

[Leonard James]

Dear Leonard,

Borders of possibility, what borders?

Like deciding to jump up and touch the moon.

But Torridons post is very interesting, what does he mean by orderly world, the orderly world man has made or the orderly world God has made ( I am a Christian, get over it ).

He probably means one in which anarchy doesn't reign.

And yes, we are surrounded by rules, Christianity is full of rules, hell! The whole of society is full of rules to stop us stupid humans doing, well, stupid things.

Of course! To stop people deciding to do stupid things.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Len,

The cause of me making a choice is my decision to do so. Nothing can oblige me to make a specific decision ... except of course the confines of possibility.

Who's this "me" - the agglomeration of unfathomably long chains of cause and effect that have gone before, or do you subscribe to Alan's little man at the controls conjecture that's somehow free of these constraints?