Searching for GOD...

[Shaker]

It is hard for me to see things from your point of view, Floo, but I do know of many people who have come through terrible hardships and found God.

If they find this god character after terrible hardships (which presumably any god worth its salt could have prevented), what use is a god?

All I can say is please do not give up.

Don't give up what?

One other thing you can say is answer the question I put to you in #19998.

[torridon]

It is hard for me to see things from your point of view, Floo, but I do know of many people who have come through terrible hardships and found God. 

All I can say is please do not give up.

There is wisdom in knowing when to give up. You can only bang your head against a wall for so long.

[Rhiannon]

There is wisdom in knowing when to give up. You can only bang your head against a wall for so long.

Too right. Then comes relief.

[Alan Burns]

Do you think you've done this with anyone?

Not sure about on this forum, but I have had some very positive feedback from people with whom I have personal contact.  It sometimes happens without me really trying.  One person in particular said to me that I will never know how much I had helped her during a bad patch in her life.  She is now involved in a Christian Ministry for young people.

[Maeght]

I honestly do not see the point you are trying to make.  Of course I may take into consideration why I might need to do something and consider the consequences - good or bad.  But ultimately it is based on the overriding conscious will of my human soul as to when and how I process the action.

How does the soul reach its decision? A random guess or by reference to previous eventts?

[Rhiannon]

Not sure about on this forum, but I have had some very positive feedback from people with whom I have personal contact.  It sometimes happens without me really trying.  One person in particular said to me that I will never know how much I had helped her during a bad patch in her life.  She is now involved in a Christian Ministry for young people.

'Bad patches' are often when conversion experiences happen. I've had very strong religious 'experiences' in times of distress. The mind plays tricks.

I'm sure you didn't mean to Alan, and you were genuinely wanting to help, but converting the vulnerable during times of distress is as old as the hills. It's basically what enables Alpha to be so successful.

[Alan Burns]

I now understand why my head hurts this morning. It's because I keep banging it on my laptop.

Ok, I have no idea if this will make it clearer or make it worse, but supposing your dining table is knackered. You have choices to make - carry on using it, refurb it, buy an expensive replacement, buy something cheap as chips from Ikea, buy a Fairtrade one, buy one made from sustainable wood... How do you decide what option to go for? Which factors help you to make your decision?

I think I would leave that one up to my wife 

[Rhiannon]

I think I would leave that one up to my wife 

FFS, Alan. Why is this so hard to answer?

You have an important decision to make. You have things to weigh up before doing so. What factors do you consider when making your decision? Please don't evade the question again.

[torridon]

By making a conscious decision to choose what I want to do. 
It may be influenced by past events, but not dictated by them.
So it is not just an inevitable reaction.

But you have no ability to choose what to want in the first place.  Hence we are constrained to acting on our preferences, whatever they are.

[wigginhall]

FFS, Alan. Why is this so hard to answer?

You have an important decision to make. You have things to weigh up before doing so. What factors do you consider when making your decision? Please don't evade the question again.

I don't think you will get a straight answer.   This is partly because AB hasn't a clue what his 'conscious choice by the soul' means, and he is reluctant to admit that he makes decisions in the usual way, with a mixture of cognitive and emotional processes, which are mediated by - guess what - the brain. 

[Alan Burns]

FFS, Alan. Why is this so hard to answer?

You have an important decision to make. You have things to weigh up before doing so. What factors do you consider when making your decision? Please don't evade the question again.

I have answered it to the best of my ability a few posts back.  I can't add any more.

[Maeght]

I have answered it to the best of my ability a few posts back.  I can't add any more.

You haven't ever answered this question Alan.

[Rhiannon]

I don't think you will get a straight answer.   This is partly because AB hasn't a clue what his 'conscious choice by the soul' means, and he is reluctant to admit that he makes decisions in the usual way, with a mixture of cognitive and emotional processes, which are mediated by - guess what - the brain.

And what I don't think he'll ever say is how much his belief that he understands 'what God wants' influences his decisions. In my table buying example (not great, I admit, but the best I can come up with this morning) he would be constrained by budget, but also what he thinks is an ethical choice according to what God would approve of - so maybe Fairtrade if he can't fix his old one. He might fancy a shiny mahogany job, but he remembers feelings of guilt and discomfort when he splurged on something not exactly ethically made before, so he decides not.

This is freedom?

[wigginhall]

He's vague because it's snake oil. 

[Alan Burns]

He's vague because it's snake oil.

So is my supposed vagueness a conscious choice of my own free will, or an automated inevitable reaction of the physically determined events in my brain?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

He's vague because it's snake oil.

Quite. There's a huge double standard at play too: on the one hand, "consciousness isn't fully defined (by which I think he's trying to say "explained"), therefore - um - I can drop my personal conjecture into the explanatory gap". On the other, when asked to define/explain "soul" we get - well, nothing at all. An arctic wilderness of nothingness compared with the Amazon jungle of richness that is the findings of neuroscience, psychology, medical technology etc.   

[Shaker]

Personally I'd like to hear more about the tables.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Not sure about on this forum, but I have had some very positive feedback from people with whom I have personal contact.  It sometimes happens without me really trying.  One person in particular said to me that I will never know how much I had helped her during a bad patch in her life.  She is now involved in a Christian Ministry for young people.

There will always be gullible people Alan, and you've discovered that it's easiest to access that gullibility when they're at their most vulnerable.

[Shaker]

AB,

There will always be gullible people Alan, and you've discovered that it's easiest to access that gullibility when they're at their most vulnerable.

*strokes beard with narrowed eyes* Yeeeees ... I was just thinking that there's an almost predatory aspect to this which is both sinister and repulsive. Get people at their weakest.

Some cults are well known for this sort of behaviour, of course, and what's an organised religion but a cult with accountants.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You seem to be asking how my conscious awareness works.  I do not know.

I don't doubt it, though lots of people from various disciplines do know a lot about that.

Perhaps instead then you could turn your attention to telling us how a "soul" works.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

As I have said, the only way to overcome the uncontrollable dictates of physical cause and effect is to induce an event which is defined from the non physical - ie the spiritual will of the conscious human soul.

But then of course that “the only way to overcome” gives the game away entirely. You really, really want “free” to mean “free of anything, including cause and effect” regardless of the incoherence that requires. And that piece of wishful thinking drives everything else – including the logical car crash of the conjecture “soul” that’s somehow a bit deterministic and somehow not deterministic because it’s like, you know, magic innit.   

Nothing at all to do with random.

Everything “to do with random”. If not deterministic, then random: the choice is binary because anything else is incoherent. 

An illusion of free will is not a form of freedom.  It is an illusion of freedom.

Which is still a form of freedom. The prisoner who isn’t aware of the prison walls is, according to his own lights, free. That’s what “a form of” means. Only if you have a helicopter view and can see the walls will you know that he has a false perception of that so, from your point of view, his perception is illusory. So it is with cause and effect – for the most part we’re dimly aware of our deterministic universe but we carry on as if the “free” of “free will” means your nonsensical version of that term.

[floo]

It is hard for me to see things from your point of view, Floo, but I do know of many people who have come through terrible hardships and found God. 

All I can say is please do not give up.

How can you defend a god who won't reveal itself to a child? If it exists why is does it play silly beggars with humans by making its existence a matter of faith rather than making it irrefutable?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I have answered it to the best of my ability a few posts back.  I can't add any more.

So your conjecture "soul" isn't "fully defined" then.

Fine. Can I introduce you to Squiggle? Squiggle is the little man at the controls of your "soul". I know this because your "soul" isn't fully defined so, you know, that gives me licence to assert as true anything I like to fill the explanatory gap, however incoherent that assertion.   

[wigginhall]

So is my supposed vagueness a conscious choice of my own free will, or an automated inevitable reaction of the physically determined events in my brain?

I think you're vague because you don't know what you're talking about. 

[Maeght]

So is my supposed vagueness a conscious choice of my own free will, or an automated inevitable reaction of the physically determined events in my brain?

Why do you think asking that adds to the discussion in any way? All it does is restate the question we are talking about and you know what people's answer will be so can only concludevthat this is further avoidance. How about trying to answer the question you've been asked instead.