Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

Our physical senses are the soul's window into this universe.  When the senses close down during sleep, the window closes.  Physicists tell us that time is a property of this universe, so the soul's perception of time will also cease until the senses open up again.

So when I open my eyes and see the outside world, is that my soul that is having the experience of seeing ?

And what about dreaming - when I dream during sleep, is that my soul experiencing dreams ?  If the 'window' is closed what is the rationale for a soul having 'dreams' ?

[torridon]

I think you missed the point I was making. 
Our ability to believe or disbelieve is a major distinguishing feature between humans and other animals.  And the fact that an orang utan can be trained to copy human like traits does not imply that it has the conscious free will of the human soul.

If you watched the youtube vid, you would see the orang-utan apparently thinking through and working out how to best string up a hammock, requiring sustained focused concentration on the problem over a period of several minutes.  Hardly the mere unthinking 'reaction' that you keep on claiming for other animals. 

[Stranger]

I think you missed the point I was making. 

It would help if you bothered to read each post in the context of the post it is in reply to.

You had made a very specific claim that "Awareness of our Creator (or conscious denial of our Creator) would be a definitive feature of our conscious awareness." (#16067). You then continued to insist that people on the forum were all in one of those categories, finally adding an additional category of "fence sitters". My post was a response to that. Specifically pointing at that there isn't just one "Creator" on offer.

Our ability to believe or disbelieve is a major distinguishing feature between humans and other animals.  And the fact that an orang utan can be trained to copy human like traits does not imply that it has the conscious free will of the human soul.

All of which is going off at a rather pointless tangent. I don't suppose for a minute you have actual evidence that orangutans can't form beliefs (in general) and you are still avoiding the main problem with your soul nonsense, which is that it is self-contradictory.

[floo]

Humans believe in many gods with no evidence to support the existence of any of them, the Christian god is no different to the rest.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Our ability to believe or disbelieve is a major distinguishing feature between humans and other animals.

That may or may not be true (depends what you mean by "believe") but, either way, it has nothing to do with defining consciousness. If you want to re-define it to mean "believing in gods" or some such that's up to you, but it's both ludicrous and circular. 

And the fact that an orang utan can be trained to copy human like traits does not imply that it has the conscious free will of the human soul.

First, you have no idea whether the orang utan was trained to do that. The fact that s/he first put up the hammock, tried it, found that it was too short and then re-did to be long enough suggests strongly though a highly developed level of consciousness - testing, forward planning, adaptability etc.

Second, you cannot just slip in "soul" like that as if it was an agreed phenomenon - that's just the reification fallacy again (one of your favourites).

[Alan Burns]

That is the point I am trying to get across.  Surely any artist would claim that he is responsible for his own creativity.  The control behind this creativity must originate from somewhere, and I believe it is in the conscious awareness of the human soul, not in the endless chains of uncontrollable cause and effect.

At broad scales, that might be reasonable.  I might plan to spend two hours studying French tonight.  But to consider how mind works with a greater degree of subtlety, put a moment of choice under a microscope. I cannot really consciously choose what to think next, because in order to consciously ponder something, it must already be in mind. There is an impossible circularity there. What happens in reality, is that thoughts happen, thoughts emerge into conscious mind from lower levels of mind. We do not consciously control them.

If you were called to account for how you have used your gift of free will during your lifetime, could you honestly deny that you ever had this gift?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If you were called to account for how you have used your gift of free will during your lifetime, could you honestly deny that you ever had this gift?

If anything.

Look, I'll show you: if Colin the leprechaun appears before you, could you honestly deny the leaving of pots of gold at the ends of rainbows?

Possibly this would be a good time for you finally to consider stopping embarrassing yourself like this?

Just a thought.

[Nearly Sane]

If you were called to account for how you have used your gift of free will during your lifetime, could you honestly deny that you ever had this gift?

brilliant example of you ignoring the logical problems in your position as pointed out in torridon's post, to then just go off on more circular based fallacies, added with your habitual foray into implying everyone arguing against you as being liars. Do you not see that your approach is more likely to put people off your religion?

[Stranger]

If you were called to account for how you have used your gift of free will during your lifetime, could you honestly deny that you ever had this gift?

Free will, as you have defined it, is impossible.

[Nearly Sane]

I think you missed the point I was making. 
Our ability to believe or disbelieve is a major distinguishing feature between humans and other animals.  And the fact that an orang utan can be trained to copy human like traits does not imply that it has the conscious free will of the human soul.

 First of all, try to at the very least not do the obvious misrepresentation of the arguments. You must surely given you claim to have read people's post know that the argument is not the the orangutan has free will and soul, but that it exhibits traits that are what we use to determine consciousness!

Further in what seems a deliberate misrepresentation , you then beg the question for the existence of freewill and soul. You have had this fallacy pointed out to you so many times that it is difficult to think that you are reading any replies with even a vague attempt to understand them.

Also, in the above you have used the word fact to imply that the video shows an orangutan trained to do this when you have no evidence for that. This is a fundamentally dishonest approach but the worry to me is that you are not even conscious you are doing it, and that again despite it being pointed out that you do this sort of openly dishonesty habitually.

It's as if your belief has disabled your ability to read and reply in a honest fashion, and has disabled your ability to see that. It's very sad.

[Gordon]

If you were called to account for how you have used your gift of free will during your lifetime, could you honestly deny that you ever had this gift?

This, Alan, is infantile drivel, and that you are seemingly blind to this despite the efforts made here to explain why it is infantile drivel is perplexing.

[torridon]

At broad scales, that might be reasonable.  I might plan to spend two hours studying French tonight.  But to consider how mind works with a greater degree of subtlety, put a moment of choice under a microscope. I cannot really consciously choose what to think next, because in order to consciously ponder something, it must already be in mind. There is an impossible circularity there. What happens in reality, is that thoughts happen, thoughts emerge into conscious mind from lower levels of mind. We do not consciously control them.

If you were called to account for how you have used your gift of free will during your lifetime, could you honestly deny that you ever had this gift?

That is just dodging the question.  To me it seems clear that we cannot consciously choose which thought to think next, as 'consciously choosing' requires us to have the options to choose from already in mind, ie to have already thought about it.  Similarly we cannot really choose what beliefs to hold, and neither can we choose what our desires and tastes are. Such considerations as these do not, I agree, impinge on the daily lives of most people, they represent a certain subtlety of insight and require a curiosity to examine and understand a little more deeply.

[wigginhall]

AB is a compulsive liar.  Rather ironic since he goes on about the conscious control of free will.   

[Nearly Sane]

AB is a compulsive liar.  Rather ironic since he goes on about the conscious control of free will.

I swither on this. At times Alan's evasions, misrepresentations, and use of fallacies seem so egregious that he must be lying, but then at the same time they seem so egregious that he can't be lying

I think we need to take him at appparent face value and just continue to point out where he has seemed to evade and misrepresent. We keep going round in circles because it appears to me that even of he actually does read posts, thete is some lacuna in his understanding. I honestly don't know how to get through.

[wigginhall]

I think some compulsive liars don't actually believe that they are lying,  although I am not an expert on it.   

[ippy]

Doesn't the way Alan writes here demonstrate how powerful the indoctrination of children is, when they are so young vulnerable.

I think he has been indoctrinated in this way when very young and really can't help delivering these unreasonable posts of his.

ippy

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

I swither on this. At times Alan's evasions, misrepresentations, and use of fallacies seem so egregious that he must be lying, but then at the same time they seem so egregious that he can't be lying

I think we need to take him at appparent face value and just continue to point out where he has seemed to evade and misrepresent. We keep going round in circles because it appears to me that even of he actually does read posts, thete is some lacuna in his understanding. I honestly don't know how to get through.

AB seems to me to be an exemplar for cognitive dissonance: on the one hand, he really, deeply profoundly believes in his "God". That belief helps him make sense of the world, it explains why he found his car keys despite having looked on that shelf already, it gives him a warm feeling when he's with like-minded people etc. Nothing - categorically, nothing – could ever shake that belief, or even be allowed to shake it.

On the other hand though he's confronted with a barrage of reasoning that falsifies the very bad arguments he tries to demonstrate that his belief is in fact well-founded. As he can't rebut that reasoning, he's reduced variously to ignoring it, misrepresenting it, responding with yet more fallacious thinking etc in the hope that it'll go away.

If you accused him of lying though, I suspect he'd be offended by the very suggestion because he doesn't recognise his behaviour in those terms - after all, he has a higher purpose so the logic that undoes him is only "man-made", the science that contradicts him is only "limited" etc. That way he can convince himself that he's still right despite the tsunami of evidence to the contrary.

Is that lying or something else? Dunno really, but it's frustrating to say the least by those of us who think debate should be conducted according to certain protocols of honesty and good faith. 

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Our ability to believe or disbelieve............... 

Which is something you have completely failed to show.

You come here and say you are on a mission to make people aware of the possibility of God existing.

We are to believe that the "arguments" you make are ones that should make us believe that such a God exists.

BUT

The arguments are hopeless. Logical contradictory, unsound etc etc.

THEN

You say we are able to CHOOSE to believe them or not.

No Alan,

Your arguments have EXACTLY the opposite effect that you want. They are unbelievable. I cannot choose to believe they are correct.


You still haven't answered the question I have asked several times. Which is:

If anything, your "arguments" have moved me , more to a position of "God does not exist" then one where he does!

How does this make you feel?

[Alan Burns]

All I can say is that the last few posts seem to confirm the truth in Sassy's opening post on this marathon thread.

I was reading some of the threads and it is abundantly clear that people do not seek the truth regarding God but simply reasons to keep from believing in him.

I hope and pray that one day you will all be set free

[Nearly Sane]

I hope and pray that one day you will all be set free

Any chance that can stop misrepresenting people? Or did you god want you to lie about your posts?

[torridon]

I was reading some of the threads and it is abundantly clear that people do not seek the truth regarding God but simply reasons to keep from believing in him.

That is largely nonsense though.  What there needs to be are positive compelling reasons to justify belief.

[Stranger]

All I can say is that the last few posts seem to confirm the truth in Sassy's opening post on this marathon thread.

I was reading some of the threads and it is abundantly clear that people do not seek the truth regarding God but simply reasons to keep from believing in him.

You have presented "arguments" based on nothing but incredulity, circularity, prejudicial language, and assertion, in order to reach a conclusion that is logically impossible. Now you claim that those people who have rejected this fallacy-ridden nonsense are not really "seeking the truth"!

Seriously, is your view of reality really that distorted?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

All I can say is that the last few posts seem to confirm the truth in Sassy's opening post on this marathon thread.

Quote from: Sassy on May 25, 2015, 12:36:28 PM

I was reading some of the threads and it is abundantly clear that people do not seek the truth regarding God but simply reasons to keep from believing in him.

Sassy’s “the truth regarding God” just assumes its premise. What she actually means is her truth.

I hope and pray that one day you will all be set free

Free from what? As your posts here suggest someone who is himself entrapped by some very bad thinking, the irony of that is jaw-dropping.

[floo]

Sassy’s “the truth regarding God” just assumes its premise. What she actually means is her truth.


I agree.

[ekim]

All I can say is that the last few posts seem to confirm the truth in Sassy's opening post on this marathon thread.

I was reading some of the threads and it is abundantly clear that people do not seek the truth regarding God but simply reasons to keep from believing in him.

I hope and pray that one day you will all be set free

It could also be said that there are people who do not seek the truth regarding God but simply reasons to keep them believing in him.   So is this the end of the marathon?   Perhaps Alan will take comfort in Matt 13 (3-8) but should certainly question whether the seeds he is attempting to sow are sterile to begin with and his antagonists should realise that religious belief is not necessarily solely based upon an assessment of probability, logic or rationality.