Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I can't accept that my posts are wrong, but I do not wish to waste time in endless tit for tat exchanges.

Depends what you mean by “my posts”. If you mean “my conclusions” – “God”, “soul” etc – then they’re just your personal truths and it's not for anyone to tell you that you’re right or wrong about such matters. Your personal opinions are your personal opinions.

Nor though is it for you to tell others that your opinions are also true for them – for the same reason.

If on the other hand you actually mean something like, “the arguments I attempt” then it’s not a matter of whether or not you accept their wrongness. A false argument is a false argument is a false argument regardless of your opinion on it.

That’s how logic works – you can have your own opinions all you like, but you cannot have your own logic.

You have the right to judge my posts as you wish, but I am sincere in my belief that my posts are true indicators to the reality of God.

A mistake of irrelevance you make a lot – your sincerity about “God” no more makes the conjecture true than my sincerity about leprechauns makes the wee green fellas true.

Your argument here is akin to the tone deaf X Factor contestant demanding to win “because I really want it”.

So what?

("X Factor" by the way is a TV singing competition, not a Roman sun cream )

And the fact that a writer of great intelligence and intellect such as CS Lewis gets similar accusations of fallacious thinking is an encouragement for me to carry on being a witness to the truth of God's existence.

Then it shouldn’t be. First that’s another fallacy – the argument from authority.

Second, a fallacious argument doesn’t cease to be a fallacious argument because C S Lewis may or may not have had an opinion on it. If you think one of the many logical fallacies you attempt is in fact valid, then it’s for you to explain why.

So far though all you’ve done is to ignore the problem.

Maybe you should change your tagline to something like: “Alan Burns: Driving people away from his god since 2006” or similar? 

[BeRational]

I can't accept that my posts are wrong, but I do not wish to waste time in endless tit for tat exchanges.  You have the right to judge my posts as you wish, but I am sincere in my belief that my posts are true indicators to the reality of God.  And the fact that a writer of great intelligence and intellect such as CS Lewis gets similar accusations of fallacious thinking is an encouragement for me to carry on being a witness to the truth of God's existence.

But they are fallacious.

I do not think you understand logic and do not understand when your arguments contain a fallacy.

If you do not understand why not just say so, and I am sure it can be explained to you.

Your 'arguments' are little more than lala last assertion  lalala

[ippy]

I can't accept that my posts are wrong, but I do not wish to waste time in endless tit for tat exchanges.  You have the right to judge my posts as you wish, but I am sincere in my belief that my posts are true indicators to the reality of God.  And the fact that a writer of great intelligence and intellect such as CS Lewis gets similar accusations of fallacious thinking is an encouragement for me to carry on being a witness to the truth of God's existence.

" I am sincere in my belief that my posts are true indicators to the reality of God".

I believe you Alan, but you have exactly Zero evidence of any kind, anyone can assert anything they like, but again, without the evidence to back up any of your assertions; La La Land.

In all of your posts I've never seen anything you have written that could be taken as viable evidence that could in any way possibly prove the existence of this god idea of yours.

You've even been asked about the method, showing your workings, used that seem to have enabled you to arrive at this decision of yours? It's never been answered.

All your statements give me a picture of somewhat petulant child like, foot stamping, "well I believe in god anyway!" With about as much  substance as this manner would convey.

ippy

[torridon]

Just to say that I do not see things as a God of Gaps, but a God of All.  I can see the work of God in all of His creation. 

So you are agreeing now, God must have made the Zika virus and malarial parasites and arthritis and childhood cancer.  Not to mention the devil of course, who also causes us trouble.  Progress of sorts, then

I know of many Christians whose faith does not hinge on anything scientific, so I agree that the content of my postings are not essential to faith.  But so many of my friends, colleagues and family seem to think that science can be used to support a Godless belief, so I try to remove this obstacle to faith in what I post.  Regarding our friend Len, I have spent many years in trying to show him that his belief in free-will could lead on to an awareness of the existence of his human soul.  I have all but lost hope of convincing other hardened atheists on this Forum of God's existence, but the fact that this thread gets about one thousand views a day gives me hope that some may see through the short sighted arguments that reduce human beings to being deluded biological robots with no will of their own.

As ever, you've got things the wrong way round.  People don't find reasons to support disbelief, rather, what is required is positive justification to support belief and I don't recall seeing any such from you for a supernatural soul.  Just asserting it over and over again like some mechanical speak your weight machine is not going to impress people reading this thread, all you demonstrate is blind fixedness of mind when there could be engagement.

[floo]

A god who supposedly created everything created bad things too, it beats me how anyone could regard it as a god of love.

[Alan Burns]

As ever, you've got things the wrong way round.  People don't find reasons to support disbelief, rather, what is required is positive justification to support belief and I don't recall seeing any such from you for a supernatural soul.  Just asserting it over and over again like some mechanical speak your weight machine is not going to impress people reading this thread, all you demonstrate is blind fixedness of mind when there could be engagement.

One aim of my posts is to show that there is more to reality than the human scientific discoveries to date, and to suggest that material science alone will never be able to define conscious awareness and consciously driven choices.  Of course I can't define how the human soul works, but I can postulate on what it does.  Regarding other Christians, the fact that the soul is responsible for our free choices is absolutely central to core belief.

When you ponder the unfathomable complexity of the workings of the human brain, and the fact that all this complexity is defined, built and maintained by the information contained within a single molecule of DNA, do you ever doubt the feasibility that this came into existence by the action of random, unguided, purposeless forces?  Or could it be evidence of a creative intelligence beyond our understanding?

[Alan Burns]

A god who supposedly created everything created bad things too, it beats me how anyone could regard it as a god of love.

The fact that anything is created is evidence of a creator,  Bad things do exist in this world, but I have faith in God's love that He laid down His life for us so that we may be saved.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

One aim of my posts is to show that there is more to reality than the human scientific discoveries to date…

Then you're wasting your time because no-one suggests otherwise, least of all people who do science. That’s why they do science – to find out more.

…and to suggest that material science alone will never be able to define conscious awareness and consciously driven choices.

You can suggest that if you want to, but you have no argument to support you.

Of course I can't define how the human soul works, but I can postulate on what it does.

You can “postulate” anything you like, including the existence of something you call “soul”. Your problem though is that postulating is where it begins and ends. If you expect the claim to be take seriously, then you’ll need to provide some cogent logic for it, some evidence for it etc so as to distinguish your claim from white noise and just guessing.

You also incidentally paint yourself into a corner when you complain that consciousness can’t be modelled “because it isn’t fully defined” while at the same time you have no definition of any kind for this “soul” of yours. 

Regarding other Christians, the fact that the soul is responsible for our free choices is absolutely central to core belief.

Lots of nonsensical claims are central to lots of core beliefs.

So?

When you ponder the unfathomable complexity of the workings of the human brain, and the fact that all this complexity is defined, built and maintained by the information contained within a single molecule of DNA, do you ever doubt the feasibility that this came into existence by the action of random, unguided, purposeless forces?

As there’s no reason to do so, no.

Or could it be evidence for an intelligence beyond our understanding?

No, unless you’re a victim of the fallacy of personal incredulity.

Here’s the question yet again that you keep dodging by the way:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE TERM “LOGICAL FALLACY” MEANS AND, IF YOU DO, DOES YOUR RELIANCE ON THEM IMPLY THAT YOU THINK THAT A FALSE ARGUMENT SOMEHOW BECOMES A GOOD ONE WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO LIKE ITS OUTCOME?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The fact that anything is created is evidence of a creator,

But your problem would be to show that various things (like people) are "created".

Bad things do exist in this world, but I have faith in God's love that He laid down His life for us so that we may be saved.

That's nice for you. I have faith that leprechauns dance jigs when the mood takes them.

Why in your view should anyone take either of our personal faith claims seriously?

[Alan Burns]

BH,
Whenever I suggest that something may be improbable, I invariably get accused of personal incredulity.  The probability of something happening has nothing personal about it.  The opposing view is that billions of beneficial mutations were generated by random forces and they all survived past countless detrimental mutations and hostile environments to produce life as we know it - all without divine intervention.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Whenever I suggest that something may be improbable, I invariably get accused of personal incredulity.

That’s not true. Everything is improbable – a randomly dealt deck of cards for example will produce a result whose improbability is expressed as 52! (52 factorial). That’s a colossally big number, yet fantastically improbable things happen all the time.

What actually happens is that you are accused of attempting the argument from personal incredulity when you frame the argument as, “event X looks incredibly unlikely to me, therefore Y must be the cause”.

It’s just a basic mistake in reasoning, and you do it a lot.

The probability of something happening has nothing personal about it.

No-one suggests otherwise.

The opposing view is that billions of beneficial mutations were generated by random forces and they all survived past countless detrimental mutations and hostile environments to produce life as we know it - all without divine intervention.

Yes.

Your mistake here is to assume that “life as we know it” was the end game all along (sometimes known as the reference point error). If you stopped looking down the wrong end of the telescope for a minute you’d see that your position makes no more sense than Douglas Adams’ puddle marvelling at the hole fitting him exactly.

In summary: we fit the universe, not the other way around.

Here’s the question again you keep dodging by the way:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE TERM “LOGICAL FALLACY” MEANS AND, IF YOU DO, DOES YOUR RELIANCE ON THEM IMPLY THAT YOU THINK THAT A FALSE ARGUMENT SOMEHOW BECOMES A GOOD ONE WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO LIKE ITS OUTCOME?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

That’s not true. Everything is improbable – a randomly dealt deck of cards for example will produce a result whose improbability is expressed as 52! (52 factorial). That’s a colossally big number, yet fantastically improbable things happen all the time.

What actually happens is that you are accused of attempting the argument from personal incredulity when you frame the argument as, “event X looks incredibly unlikely to me, therefore Y must be the cause”.

It’s just a basic mistake in reasoning, and you do it a lot.

No-one suggests otherwise.

Yes.

Your mistake here is to assume that “life as we know it” was the end game all along (sometimes known as the reference point error). If you stopped looking down the wrong end of the telescope for a minute you’d see that your position makes no more sense than Douglas Adams’ puddle marvelling at the hole fitting him exactly.

In summary: we fit the universe, not the other way around.

To fill a puddle requires very little complexity.
Yet you can compare this to the generation of human DNA together with all the other life forms on this planet???

[floo]

The fact that anything is created is evidence of a creator,  Bad things do exist in this world, but I have faith in God's love that He laid down His life for us so that we may be saved.

To you it might be evidence of a creator, but I am sure there are other possibilities.  You believe god was the creator, therefore it is responsible for human nature and devastating natural events.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

To fill a puddle requires very little complexity.
Yet you can compare this to the generation of human DNA together with all the other life forms on this planet???

You’ve completely missed the point – it's an analogy, not a comparison.

The point was that it’s a mistake just to assume that the observable outcomes (people, puddles, hands of cards or anything else) were what the universe intended all along, and thus that the chances of random events producing those results is so unlikely as to be incredible. The mistake even has a name – the reference point error.

It’ll take a major shift in thinking on your part, but what you need to do is to look through the correct end of the telescope to see that each incremental change could have led anywhere and that the fact of producing people and lemurs and dandelions was happenstance, not design.

[Enki]

Just to say that I do not see things as a God of Gaps, but a God of All.  I can see the work of God in all of His creation.  I know of many Christians whose faith does not hinge on anything scientific, so I agree that the content of my postings are not essential to faith.  But so many of my friends, colleagues and family seem to think that science can be used to support a Godless belief, so I try to remove this obstacle to faith in what I post.  Regarding our friend Len, I have spent many years in trying to show him that his belief in free-will could lead on to an awareness of the existence of his human soul.  I have all but lost hope of convincing other hardened atheists on this Forum of God's existence, but the fact that this thread gets about one thousand views a day gives me hope that some may see through the short sighted arguments that reduce human beings to being deluded biological robots with no will of their own.

Why 'hardened atheists' Alan? What on earth do you mean by this? I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't class myself as a 'hardened atheist' at all. The fact that I have never experienced any god, or that I have never seen any evidence for any god, leads me quite naturally to a state of not believing in any god. Your constant unevidenced assertions do not alter that at all, they simply seem to show that you have deeply held beliefs, no more or less than that. Why should I find you convincing, simply because you believe in your God? There are plenty of people who have just as strong beliefs, many of which are contradictory to your own. I am very willing to be pliable, Alan, but you haven't given me one good reason to change my position. Insistence on such statements as 'I can see the work of God in all of His creation' might work wonders for you, but unfortunately comes across to me as rather empty and lacking in power.

Unfortunately, also, you don't seem to be able to deal with science very well at all. As I see it, science deals with the natural world in as intersubjective way as possible, and the only time it conflicts with religion is when religion wanders upon science's territory. There are plenty of scientists who are religious, of course, so your idea that science is 'an obstacle to faith' is an empty vessel.

You also show your very obvious prejudice against ideas which don't conform to your view, which does you no favours, Alan. So you are happy to state that arguments that suggest that we are a result of cause and effect are short sighted, that such ideas 'reduce human beings to be deluded biological robots'. Why short sighted, Alan? Why deluded, Alan? Why robotic, Alan? Furthermore, instead of giving solid, well constructed evidential arguments which might show that your view is the correct scientific one to hold, you simply assert things, and seem very happy to ignore any scientific findings which contradict your deeply held faith position.

To come back to my original point about 'hardened atheists'. I put it to you that what you really mean are simply certain  people on this forum  who challenge your beliefs, and refuse to simply accept your assertions, no more, no less.

[torridon]

BH,
Whenever I suggest that something may be improbable, I invariably get accused of personal incredulity.  The probability of something happening has nothing personal about it.  The opposing view is that billions of beneficial mutations were generated by random forces and they all survived past countless detrimental mutations and hostile environments to produce life as we know it - all without divine intervention.

Divine intervention is way more improbable than evolution by natural selection, if you just think things through.

[torridon]

One aim of my posts is to show that there is more to reality than the human scientific discoveries to date, and to suggest that material science alone will never be able to define conscious awareness and consciously driven choices.  Of course I can't define how the human soul works, but I can postulate on what it does.

You are way behind the science, though, just cherry picking little bits here and there that suit your agenda and ignoring the general direction of what we are finding out.  In other words, you aren't learning from new findings. And your postings on the soul are just so much incoherent noise.

[torridon]

When you ponder the unfathomable complexity of the workings of the human brain, and the fact that all this complexity is defined, built and maintained by the information contained within a single molecule of DNA, do you ever doubt the feasibility that this came into existence by the action of random, unguided, purposeless forces?  Or could it be evidence of a creative intelligence beyond our understanding?

I think the opposite; observation suggests that complexity builds up from simpler roots not the other way round. Explaining complexity by invoking even greater complexity to create it is an invitation to an impossible regress.  Our reality may be hard to understand, but it is a walk in the park compared to trying to understand the provenance of a divine creator.

[Alan Burns]

Divine intervention is way more improbable than evolution by natural selection, if you just think things through.

But your logic seems to be that the fact that something has happened, no matter how improbable, is sufficient evidence for it happening without any divine intervention.

So If I won the national lottery next week, it would be improbable, but feasible.
If I won it again the week after, you could claim it to be an incredible coincidence, just a one off.
If I then continued to win it week after week for the rest of my life, I guess you would suspect that this was not happening by chance.

This final scenario is no doubt possible, but so improbable that you would rightly claim "fix".

I put it to you that if we were to calculate the true probabilities if life as we know it to come into existence without the intervention of intelligent creative forces, the odds would exceed the scenario above by many, many magnitudes.

[torridon]

But your logic seems to be that the fact that something has happened, no matter how improbable, is sufficient evidence for it happening without any divine intervention.

So If I won the national lottery next week, it would be improbable, but feasible.
If I won it again the week after, you could claim it to be an incredible coincidence, just a one off.
If I then continued to win it week after week for the rest of my life, I guess you would suspect that this was not happening by chance.

This final scenario is no doubt possible, but so improbable that you would rightly claim "fix".

I put it to you that if we were to calculate the true probabilities if life as we know it to come into existence without the intervention of intelligent creative forces, the odds would exceed the scenario above by many, many magnitudes.

You don't get it - a super intelligence capable of creating all those improbable things is even more improbable still.

[Alan Burns]

I think the opposite; observation suggests that complexity builds up from simpler roots not the other way round. Explaining complexity by invoking even greater complexity to create it is an invitation to an impossible regress.  Our reality may be hard to understand, but it is a walk in the park compared to trying to understand the provenance of a divine creator.

Your observation is not evident on other perceived planets in our solar system.  The only thing which builds up on them is increasing chaos.  If you confine your observations to what happens on this richly blessed planet we call earth, I suspect that you will get a very biased view of the natural universe.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I see you’ve just ignored again my recent rebuttals and explanations. Oh well.

But your logic seems to be that the fact that something has happened, no matter how improbable, is sufficient evidence for it happening without any divine intervention.

So If I won the national lottery next week, it would be improbable, but feasible.
If I won it again the week after, you could claim it to be an incredible coincidence, just a one off.
If I then continued to win it week after week for the rest of my life, I guess you would suspect that this was not happening by chance.

This final scenario is no doubt possible, but so improbable that you would rightly claim "fix".

I put it to you that if we were to calculate the true probabilities if life as we know it to come into existence without the intervention of intelligent creative forces, the odds would exceed the scenario above by many, many magnitudes.

This just repeats your last mistake. Your scenario entails a “you” in advance to be the lottery winner. That’s a false analogy though – you have no reason to suppose that the universe couldn’t just as well have produced no life, or life entirely different from you. Indeed, there may well be life entirely different from you.

Again you’re just assuming that you were the end game all along and then marvelling at the unlikelihood of the bajillions of events necessary to make you the outcome. That’s bad thinking. You need to drop the solipsism and grasp that the universe neither knew nor was capable of caring what its outcomes would be.

Why is this so difficult for you?     

[SusanDoris]

Above are some very interesting posts; and then there are AB's.

The phrase 'hardened atheists' should be withdrawn, AB, with anapology.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

I see you’ve just ignored again my recent rebuttals and explanations. Oh well.

This just repeats your last mistake. Your scenario entails a “you” in advance to be the lottery winner. That’s a false analogy though – you have no reason to suppose that the universe couldn’t just as well have produced no life, or life entirely different from you. Indeed, there may well be life entirely different from you.

Again you’re just assuming that you were the end game all along and then marvelling at the unlikelihood of the bajillions of events necessary to make you the outcome. That’s bad thinking. You need to drop the solipsism and grasp that the universe neither knew nor was capable of caring what its outcomes would be.

Why is this so difficult for you?   

That is just it!

How could I possibly come into existence in a universe which is naturally indifferent, if not hostile, to the presence of life?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Susan,

Above are some very interesting posts; and then there are AB's.

The phrase 'hardened atheists' should be withdrawn, AB, with an apology.

One of the many unwitting ironies of AB’s posts is that it’s he who’s “hardened” in his position (he tells us quite readily that he cannot accept that he could be wrong) whereas the atheists here are characterised by their willingness to go where the evidence leads.