Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone depict god as the answer to 'how', no. I've seen people answer the begging question 'why' with 'god(s)', but not 'how'.

Not that 'god' is a particularly developed answer, of course, it's got no more evidentiary support now than it had thousands of years ago when it was first proposed in the absence of any rational answer.

O.

I have spent many posts explaining that God is the "How" behind our acquiring our ability to make a conscious choice.

[ippy]

I do not think you have fully grasped to concept of "nothing".
In absolute terms, "nothing" is more than just a vacuum in our current universe - it is a complete absence of material, space and time.

You keep making posts that on the surface look as though you're looking for a reasonably sensible exchange with non-believers Alan and then you keep going into daft mode trying to justify bringing in mentions of the soul from various directions and blow out any sense of a reasonable discourse with one word.

ippy

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I have spent many posts explaining that God is the "How" behind our acquiring our ability to make a conscious choice.

Could you perhaps point us to just one post you've made here in which you do "explain how" something rather than just assert it to be so?

Ta.

[BeRational]

I have spent many posts explaining that God is the "How" behind our acquiring our ability to make a conscious choice.

You never explain, you just assert completely without evidence.

Is the soul used as an explanation by scientists in the field?

[Sebastian Toe]

I do not think you have fully grasped to concept of "nothing".
In absolute terms, "nothing" is not just a vacuum in our current universe - it is a complete absence of material, space and time.

Just to recap.
IIRC Your 'soul' is not material, does not take up any space and is outwith time.
Therefore,  nothing?
Just saying!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Seb,

Just to recap.
IIRC Your 'soul' is not material, does not take up any space and is outwith time.
Therefore,  nothing?
Just saying!

I think you may have forgotten old "Crashes and" Burns's special argument: magic.

[Outrider]

Hello nothing....or should I say fluctuations in what physicists call the metastable false vacuum?

let's face it you are trying to have your cake and eat it a nothing and an eternal metastable false vacuum or should we call it the unconscious creative mechanism.

What is nothing, if it is not a vacuum?

So nothing is a metastable false vacuum?

False vacuum? False vacuum sounds the best description for something that you could ever get!

So why a metastable false vacuum and not nothing?

Again with the question begging.. what makes you think there's a 'why' to it in the first place?

O.

[Outrider]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Universe_from_Nothing

Note the quote from Sean Carroll.

I'd agree with him. He fails to address the point that no-one's given any reason to think that 'why' is a valid question in this context though. Krauss is demonstrating how, given the initial conditions 'something' is could emerge from 'nothing'.

O.

[Outrider]

I do not think you have fully grasped to concept of "nothing". In absolute terms, "nothing" is not just a vacuum in our current universe - it is a complete absence of material, space and time.

I think I've more than adequately grasped the concept of 'nothing'. Outside of space and time we have no ability to conceptualise anything, nothing, something, more or less things, or even things. We have no cognitive architecture to build a model of what 'things' in such a space would be - how could you have 'things' without spacetime for them to occur in?

O.

[wigginhall]

It starts to become semantics, as nothing in the sense of a complete absence of anything, cannot exist.   If it did, it would be something. 

[wigginhall]

I have spent many posts explaining that God is the "How" behind our acquiring our ability to make a conscious choice.

I'm just waiting for you to demonstrate how this works.   Show don't tell.

[Nearly Sane]

It starts to become semantics, as nothing in the sense of a complete absence of anything, cannot exist.   If it did, it would be something.

Indeed, I think 'nothing' in this absolute sense, is impossible to comprehend or talk about it. It melts language into a pile of meaninglessness.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

#22405

No idea what your response means. Perhaps you can explain what you think "belief" means and what you think I am conflating.

Here is what I understand belief to mean:

Person A believes that the speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s.

Person B believes that Prince Phillip is a shape-shifting space lizard.

Both “believe” something, but with very different rationales – evidence and faith respectively.

Then perhaps it would be worth asking Gabriella what evidence she believes supports her faith rather than assuming that there isn't any, and indirectly equating her faith with believing that Prince Phillip is a shape-shifting space lizard.

One other thing: If there is any conflation being done, it is on your behalf, because you don't understand the context of faith where religious belief is concerned. Please learn the difference between belief and blind belief.

[Gordon]

One other thing: If there is any conflation being done, it is on your behalf, because you don't understand the context of faith where religious belief is concerned. Please learn the difference between belief and blind belief.

Which is?

[Walter]

#22405
Then perhaps it would be worth asking Gabriella what evidence she believes supports her faith rather than assuming that there isn't any, and indirectly equating her faith with believing that Prince Phillip is a shape-shifting space lizard.

One other thing: If there is any conflation being done, it is on your behalf, because you don't understand the context of faith where religious belief is concerned. Please learn the difference between belief and blind belief.

introducing parameters to nonsense does not give it credibility.

[Shaker]

#22405
Then perhaps it would be worth asking Gabriella what evidence she believes supports her faith rather than assuming that there isn't any, and indirectly equating her faith with believing that Prince Phillip is a shape-shifting space lizard.

As bluehillside has previously pointed out repeatedly (and you signally failed to grapple with) when the arguments for gods are epistemically on a par with those for leprechauns, you're in possession of a shit argument, to be blunt.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

BHS

Gabriella,

I'm afraid I have a work project to complete that'll take a of of my time over the next few days, so I won't have time to give your last Reply the time it needs. I will though come back to you when I can if that's ok.

In the meantime though, to keep the pot bubbling here's some Christopher Hitchens that seems to me to be on point:

"I’ve spoken at Unitarian churches very often. It seems to me, again, that they don’t give me enough to disagree with. But as for lumping them in, I’ll say this. Have you read Camus’s La Peste? At the end, the plague is over, the nightmare has dissipated, the city has returned to health. Normality has resumed. But he ends by saying that underneath the city, in the pipes and in the sewers, the rats were still there. And they’d one day send their vermin up again to die on the streets of a free city.

That’s how I feel about religion. Thanks to advances of science, education, political tolerance, pluralism and so on, religion can now be one option among many—who cares who’s a Unitarian or who’s a Congregationalist? But in the texts, the actual texts, there is always this toxin that’s ready to be revived. What I say is, “Do you believe this stuff or don’t you?” In other words, “In what respect are you different from a humanist?” The authority of the texts is always on the side of the extremists, because they do say what they say. So be aware of this danger. That’s all I’m arguing."

"You’re quite right. Atheism is a necessary condition for emancipation of the mind, but it’s not a sufficient one. You can free yourself from superstition and still end up a nihilist or a hedonist or a Stalinist. What’s innate in our species isn’t the fault of religion. But the bad things that are innate in our species are strengthened by religion and sanctified by it. The fact is, we are a mammalian species one half-chromosome away from chimpanzees, and it shows. Curing ourselves of religion is only a small step along the road. Fortunately, our brains seem to be evolving."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/07/transcending-god/306076/

Yes, sure - no problem.

Regarding the Hitchens quote - I used to see it the Hitchens way, but decided I did not want to be that dogmatic anymore. It seemed no different to the people with tunnel vision who try and scare you into following their religion.

I think human nature shapes religious ideas. And throughout history, human nature changed as parts of the world got easier to live in due to scientific discoveries, increased knowledge, more sophisticated social infrastructure. People become more tolerant and open to exploring new ideas and opportunities when they are not faced with what they feel is an existential threat, not just to their lives but to their way of life. As human nature became more tolerant, it followed that the religious moral beliefs, much like any moral beliefs that are a product of human nature became more tolerant.

In other words I agree with Hitchens, the rats are still in the sewer because human nature still has the potential to go back to the sewer. But I disagree that religion is some special problem that strengthens and sanctifies bad things. I see it as no different to political ideas and the political institutions that strengthen and sanctify bad things. Our belief in democracy can lead to twisted, evil leaders but I still think democracy serves a purpose that makes it worth holding onto that belief in democracy and risking that negative outcome. Similarly, I find religion is an idea worth holding on to.

[Alan Burns]

I'm just waiting for you to demonstrate how this works.   Show don't tell.

You have just demonstrated your capacity to consciously choose to reply to my post.  You may further exercise your conscious ability in choosing what is the most likely definitive source of your conscious decision to reply.  Could it be your spiritual gift of free will, or just the inevitable result of all the pre determined physical reactions in your brain cells?  I admit I do not know how free will works, but I know it is not pre determined by nature, it is determined by my own conscious will.

[SusanDoris]

You have just demonstrated your capacity to consciously choose to reply to my post.  You may further exercise your conscious ability in choosing what is the most likely definitive source of your conscious decision to reply.  Could it be your spiritual gift of free will, or just the inevitable result of all the pre determined physical reactions in your brain cells?  I admit I do not know how free will works, but I know it is not pre determined by nature, it is determined by my own conscious will.

In other words, you don't know, you are just guessing - blinkering your view to reality , as usual.

[ekim]

You have just demonstrated your capacity to consciously choose to reply to my post.  You may further exercise your conscious ability in choosing what is the most likely definitive source of your conscious decision to reply.  Could it be your spiritual gift of free will, or just the inevitable result of all the pre determined physical reactions in your brain cells?  I admit I do not know how free will works, but I know it is not pre determined by nature, it is determined by my own conscious will.

But you said this: "I have spent many posts explaining that God is the "How" behind our acquiring our ability to make a conscious choice."  and your reply has left God out of the system.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

Then perhaps it would be worth asking Gabriella what evidence she believes supports her faith rather than assuming that there isn't any, and indirectly equating her faith with believing that Prince Phillip is a shape-shifting space lizard.

I’m not indirectly equating it with believing Prince Philip is a shape-shifting lizard, I’m directly equating it with that.

Science: claims of objective fact – objects are mind independent; sigma methodology for establishing truth values; investigable via testable predictions; evidence-based; falsifiable, so provisional; intersubjectively experienced regardless of opinions.

Morality, aesthetics etc: non-factual; mixed instinctive and reason-based; variable over time; consensual; subjective - conclusions are mind-dependent; objects not “out here”.

Gods, leprechauns, fairies etc: faith-based claims of objective fact. Er, that’s it.       

One other thing: If there is any conflation being done, it is on your behalf, because you don't understand the context of faith where religious belief is concerned. Please learn the difference between belief and blind belief.

By all means educate me. What do you think the difference to be, because I’m not aware that there is one.

[wigginhall]

You have just demonstrated your capacity to consciously choose to reply to my post.  You may further exercise your conscious ability in choosing what is the most likely definitive source of your conscious decision to reply.  Could it be your spiritual gift of free will, or just the inevitable result of all the pre determined physical reactions in your brain cells?  I admit I do not know how free will works, but I know it is not pre determined by nature, it is determined by my own conscious will.

Another of your non-answers, as ekim pointed out.  The original post was about God being involved in human choices, and I asked how you would show this, note, show, not assert.   I mean, anybody can assert anything - here you go, we are in the Matrix for sure - but the task is to demonstrate this tangibly.   

[Walter]

Another of your non-answers, as ekim pointed out.  The original post was about God being involved in human choices, and I asked how you would show this, note, show, not assert.   I mean, anybody can assert anything - here you go, we are in the Matrix for sure - but the task is to demonstrate this tangibly.

he is obviously incapable of understanding the concept of what you are asking . Its not his fault. Its how his brain works .

[SusanDoris]

The idea that SotS needs to advise posters here how to respond, which he does regularly,  is just so funny....

[Alan Burns]

But you said this: "I have spent many posts explaining that God is the "How" behind our acquiring our ability to make a conscious choice."  and your reply has left God out of the system.

I would have thought you would recognise that my mention of "the spiritual gift of free will" implied that this gift can only come from God.  Removing God from the equation results in everything we do, think or say being driven entirely by the physically determined reactions of nature over which there can be no control.