Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

The ifs I gave as examples are to do with your state of mind - and your state of mind at a given point in time is one of the things that contribute to the choices you make. Nobody is suggesting that we make choices that don't depend on how we feel, what mood we're in, or any other aspect of our state of mind.

So when you said you could have made a different choice in the past, do you actually mean you could if you'd been in exactly the same state of mind and in exactly the same circumstances (as if time had been rewound)?

If we were composed entirely of material elements, and they all existed in the same state at the moment of choice then of course the result will be the same.

But spiritual entities are not governed by the state of material elements, which I presume is why we have freedom to choose.

[Stranger]

If we were composed entirely of material elements, and they all existed in the same state at the moment of choice then of course the result will be the same.

But spiritual entities are not governed by the state of material elements, which I presume is why we have freedom to choose.

I didn't ask you about an entity composed of anything in particular nor did I ask you to reiterate your meaningless assertions. Once again you are running away from the point and refusing to answer the question or consider the implications.

You made a point out of your claim that we supposedly know that we could have made different choices (#27248) and now you won't explain yourself.

• You will not say how you know - in what way you think your experience would be different if you couldn't have made a different choice. A question you've simply ignored.
  
  
• You will not explain if you think that you could really have made a different choice if you were in exactly the same state of mind (state of soul, if you think it has one). Without an answer to this question, your original assertion is not only unsupported but totally meaningless.

Do you have the freedom to answer these questions or is your mind totally controlled by your past and the blind faith it has left you with?

[Alan Burns]

I didn't ask you about an entity composed of anything in particular nor did I ask you to reiterate your meaningless assertions. Once again you are running away from the point and refusing to answer the question or consider the implications.

You made a point out of your claim that we supposedly know that we could have made different choices (#27248) and now you won't explain yourself.

• You will not say how you know - in what way you think your experience would be different if you couldn't have made a different choice. A question you've simply ignored.
  
  
• You will not explain if you think that you could really have made a different choice if you were in exactly the same state of mind (state of soul, if you think it has one). Without an answer to this question, your original assertion is not only unsupported but totally meaningless.

Do you have the freedom to answer these questions or is your mind totally controlled by your past and the blind faith it has left you with?

It all boils down to the fact that I know that I am able to make conscious choices which are not entirely determined by past events, but by my God given freedom to make choices.  If they were determined by past events rather than my conscious will I would just be nature's robot.  I believe my soul can do whatever it takes to invoke my conscious choices.  I hope and pray that you and others will come to recognise this amazing gift of free will which God has given to all of us, and is what makes us human.

[torridon]

It all boils down to the fact that I know that I am able to make conscious choices which are not entirely determined by past events, but by my God given freedom to make choices.  If they were determined by past events rather than my conscious will I would just be nature's robot.  I believe my soul can do whatever it takes to invoke my conscious choices.  I hope and pray that you and others will come to recognise this amazing gift of free will which God has given to all of us, and is what makes us human.

 .. says the guy who seems more robot-like than most.  Despite years of posting on this thread you haven't managed to come up with any evidence to support your claims, no evidence for free will, no evidence for gods, no evidence for souls, no evidence for it being a gift, the only evidence you provide is that of an unusually fixed and obsessive mind unable or unwilling to think outside its box and break new ground in insight and understanding.  Your amazing gift of free will is just a persistent mirage in your own mind 

[Gordon]

It all boils down to the fact that I know that I am able to make conscious choices which are not entirely determined by past events, but by my God given freedom to make choices.  If they were determined by past events rather than my conscious will I would just be nature's robot.  I believe my soul can do whatever it takes to invoke my conscious choices.  I hope and pray that you and others will come to recognise this amazing gift of free will which God has given to all of us, and is what makes us human.

You don't 'know' this at all, Alan: you believe it, which isn't the same as having knowledge.

Your fondness for fallacies is legendary, where perhaps the over-arching one in your case is of begging the question: your every premise is 'God', your every conclusion is 'God', you reject any explanation which doesn't include 'God' and, even worse, you exploit any gaps in current knowledge (or invent your own gaps) in which to insert spurious explanations in support of your claim of 'God'.

Ironically, when it comes to thinking and reasoning, you exhibit no 'freedom of will' whatsoever and come across as more of a biological robot than most.   

[SusanDoris]

You don't 'know' this at all, Alan: you believe it, which isn't the same as having knowledge.

Your fondness for fallacies is legendary, where perhaps the over-arching one in your case is of begging the question: your every premise is 'God', your every conclusion is 'God', you reject any explanation which doesn't include 'God' and, even worse, you exploit any gaps in current knowledge (or invent your own gaps) in which to insert spurious explanations in support of your claim of 'God'.

Ironically, when it comes to thinking and reasoning, you exhibit no 'freedom of will' whatsoever and come across as more of a biological robot than most.

Seconded ... ... thirded and fourthed.

[Stranger]

It all boils down to the fact that I know that I am able to make conscious choices which are not entirely determined by past events, but by my God given freedom to make choices.

Once again, you've totally ignored the questions. How do you know? What would be different about what you experience or observe if you weren't able to do this logically impossible feat? I suspect that you don't know at all, you just have blind faith - and your continued refusal to answer questions about how you know and even what you mean, is just confirmation of this.

If they were determined by past events rather than my conscious will I would just be nature's robot.

Your most recent favourite fallacy: argumentum ad consequentiam.

I believe my soul can do whatever it takes to invoke my conscious choices.

No idea what this is even supposed to mean.

I hope and pray that you and others will come to recognise this amazing gift of free will which God has given to all of us, and is what makes us human.

....and (one has to assume) believe the logically impossible, be scared of logical arguments, unable to answer straightforward questions, and indulge in transparent evasion in order to avoid doing so.

Thanks - but no thanks.

Now, any chance of actually addressing the points:-

You made a point out of your claim that we supposedly know that we could have made different choices (#27248) and now you won't explain yourself.

• You will not say how you know - in what way you think your experience would be different if you couldn't have made a different choice. A question you've simply ignored.
  
  
• You will not explain if you think that you could really have made a different choice if you were in exactly the same state of mind (state of soul, if you think it has one). Without an answer to this question, your original assertion is not only unsupported but totally meaningless.

I suspect there are two chances of a direct answer: fat and slim.

[Alan Burns]

Torri, Gordon, Stranger, Blue

For people who claim to have no means of thinking for themselves, guided only by the deterministic reactions to previous events, you all show remarkable abilities to think up very detailed reasons to support your own positions.

But if you can guide your own thought processes, can you define what it is that can consciously provide this guidance?  Can you honestly believe that it is all down to unavoidable deterministic reactions to previous events in your brain cells?

[torridon]

Torri, Gordon, Stranger, Blue

For people who claim to have no means of thinking for themselves, guided only by the deterministic reactions to previous events, you all show remarkable abilities to think up very detailed reasons to support your own positions.

But if you can guide your own thought processes, can you define what it is that can consciously provide this guidance?  Can you honestly believe that it is all down to unavoidable deterministic reactions to previous events in your brain cells?

I don't recall claiming that I can't think for myself; on the other hand, I can't choose which thought to think next, that implies you would have to think about the thought first before deciding which thought to think next. No one, you included, can do that.  Thoughts happen, and they are triggered something prior.

[Enki]

It all boils down to the fact that I know that I am able to make conscious choices which are not entirely determined by past events, but by my God given freedom to make choices.  If they were determined by past events rather than my conscious will I would just be nature's robot.  I believe my soul can do whatever it takes to invoke my conscious choices.  I hope and pray that you and others will come to recognise this amazing gift of free will which God has given to all of us, and is what makes us human.

Your own version of the Stoic swerve, eh Alan. Find some gaps in our knowledge and attempt to fill them with your notion of a 'soul'. Trouble is you haven't any evidence whatever for this 'soul' of yours. Yes it's a possibility but possibilities without evidence are easy to suggest. It seems to me to be such a tawdry idea as it reduces the human being by putting a magical soul idea firmly at the controls, rather than concentrating on the whole human being as a complex thinking, feeling entity in its own right. As Baggini puts it, 'The goal is to find some kind of 'unmoved mover', a part of the self that can choose without having been caused to choose. Even if you could find such a thing, what you'd end up with is a kind of a magical homunculus, much smaller than the whole person whom it purportedly controls.'

[Stranger]

Torri, Gordon, Stranger, Blue

For people who claim to have no means of thinking for themselves...

So, now you're resorting to blatant misrepresentation.

...guided only by the deterministic reactions to previous events, you all show remarkable abilities to think up very detailed reasons to support your own positions.

Being deterministic is actually the only logical way in which we could possibly come up with meaningful arguments. There may, of course, be some (pseudo) randomness involved and it's quite possible that some aspects of brain activity would be chaotic in the mathematical sense (subject to the 'butterfly effect').

But if you can guide your own thought processes, can you define what it is that can consciously provide this guidance?

Back to the meaningless nonsense.

Can you honestly believe that it is all down to unavoidable deterministic reactions to previous events in your brain cells?

Yes - being deterministic is the only logical way it could work and being due to activity in the brain is what all the evidence indicates. It's far, far more believable than evidence-free logical contradictions.

Now, any chance of actually addressing the points:-

You made a point out of your claim that we supposedly know that we could have made different choices (#27248) and now you won't explain yourself.

• You will not say how you know - in what way you think your experience would be different if you couldn't have made a different choice. A question you've simply ignored.
  
  
• You will not explain if you think that you could really have made a different choice if you were in exactly the same state of mind (state of soul, if you think it has one). Without an answer to this question, your original assertion is not only unsupported but totally meaningless.

I suspect there are two chances of a direct answer: fat and slim.

Looks like I have the power of prophecy too!

Alan - you clearly do not have the freedom to address the questions and logic honestly and directly. I suspect that your blind faith (which is the product of your past) is not allowing you to even acknowledge them to yourself...

[Alan Burns]

So, now you're resorting to blatant misrepresentation.

Being deterministic is actually the only logical way in which we could possibly come up with meaningful arguments. There may, of course, be some (pseudo) randomness involved and it's quite possible that some aspects of brain activity would be chaotic in the mathematical sense (subject to the 'butterfly effect').

Back to the meaningless nonsense.

Yes - being deterministic is the only logical way it could work and being due to activity in the brain is what all the evidence indicates. It's far, far more believable than evidence-free logical contradictions.

Looks like I have the power of prophecy too!

Alan - you clearly do not have the freedom to address the questions and logic honestly and directly. I suspect that your blind faith (which is the product of your past) is not allowing you to even acknowledge them to yourself...

But you have the freedom to label any evidence for the human soul as meaningless nonsense.

[Stranger]

But you have the freedom to label any evidence for the human soul as meaningless nonsense.

Evidence? Where is this evidence? I actually labelled part of what you said as meaningless nonsense - I have seen no evidence.

However, this is more evidence that you do not have the freedom (or courage or honesty?) to address the logical arguments and questions that have been presented to you honestly and directly and that you need to resort to evasion or simply ignoring them.

[Alan Burns]

Your own version of the Stoic swerve, eh Alan. Find some gaps in our knowledge and attempt to fill them with your notion of a 'soul'. Trouble is you haven't any evidence whatever for this 'soul' of yours. Yes it's a possibility but possibilities without evidence are easy to suggest. It seems to me to be such a tawdry idea as it reduces the human being by putting a magical soul idea firmly at the controls, rather than concentrating on the whole human being as a complex thinking, feeling entity in its own right. As Baggini puts it, 'The goal is to find some kind of 'unmoved mover', a part of the self that can choose without having been caused to choose. Even if you could find such a thing, what you'd end up with is a kind of a magical homunculus, much smaller than the whole person whom it purportedly controls.'

The evidence for the human soul lies in the human ability to conceive of the probability that there is a soul which can survive after the death of the human body.  This concept of the soul is evident in throughout human history, and I believe we were meant to become aware of the existence of the soul because God Himself gave us this awareness.  And it is further confirmed in the divine revelations of the Christian bible.

All I have done is to elaborate on the concept of the human soul and show how it can be used to explain some of the mysteries behind our existence.

[torridon]

The evidence for the human soul lies in the human ability to conceive of the probability that there is a soul which can survive after the death of the human body.  This concept of the soul is evident in throughout human history, and I believe we were meant to become aware of the existence of the soul because God Himself gave us this awareness.  And it is further confirmed in the divine revelations of the Christian bible

So the ability to imagine something is evidence that the something exists ?  I think you need to go back to the drawing board and start again.  Evidence is something that allows us to discriminate between rival suggestions, so we can see which one is correct.

[ippy]

The evidence for the human soul lies in the human ability to conceive of the probability that there is a soul which can survive after the death of the human body.  This concept of the soul is evident in throughout human history, and I believe we were meant to become aware of the existence of the soul because God Himself gave us this awareness.  And it is further confirmed in the divine revelations of the Christian bible.

All I have done is to elaborate on the concept of the human soul and show how it can be used to explain some of the mysteries behind our existence.

Substitute god/soul for kippers and all three are equally as likely, you must be aware of this but just can't bring yourself to admit it.

Necessarily good and the kindest of wishes Alan, ippy. 

[Stranger]

The evidence for the human soul lies in the human ability to conceive of the probability that there is a soul which can survive after the death of the human body.

So you don't actually have a clue what "evidence" means.

This concept of the soul is evident in throughout human history, and I believe we were meant to become aware of the existence of the soul because God Himself gave us this awareness.  And it is further confirmed in the divine revelations of the Christian bible.

Other baseless superstitions and related old books are available.

All I have done is to elaborate on the concept of the human soul and show how it can be used to explain some of the mysteries behind our existence.

You have shown nothing of the sort. What you've suggested explains exactly nothing is, in any case, logically impossible.

[Grace of God]

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.

In doing so they ignore the very warnings and signs of the times.
If people read the bible in a manner that sought to know God...how many would be so ignorant of those signs?

Seeking God might mean some have to change their ways and some like their ways best, they might know it's not good for them but they continue any way and of course misery loves company, so they seem to round up who ever they can to share their dislike of God..

[Stranger]

Seeking God might mean some have to change their ways and some like their ways best, they might know it's not good for them but they continue any way and of course misery loves company...

Considering evidence and logic might mean some religious people have to change their ways and some like their ways best, they might know it's not good for them but they continue any way and of course delusion loves company...     

...so they seem to round up who ever they can to share their dislike of God..

You can't dislike 'God' - there is no single, agreed upon notion of god, just endless stories about various gods united mostly by their complete lack of supporting evidence or sound arguments.

[Alan Burns]

Substitute god/soul for kippers and all three are equally as likely, you must be aware of this but just can't bring yourself to admit it.

Necessarily good and the kindest of wishes Alan, ippy.

Sorry, but I can see no evidence for belief in the immortality of kippers in human history or in the Christian bible.

[ippy]

Considering evidence and logic might mean some religious people have to change their ways and some like their ways best, they might know it's not good for them but they continue any way and of course delusion loves company...     

You can't dislike 'God' - there is no single, agreed upon notion of god, just endless stories about various gods united mostly by their complete lack of supporting evidence or sound arguments.

'delusion loves company' I couldn't agree more that's about the main reason for their weekly reinforcement meetings, they can give each other support for their nonsense, lots of knowing looks etc.

Regards ippy

[torridon]

Sorry, but I can see no evidence for belief in the immortality of kippers in human history or in the Christian bible.

Ancient Egytpians believed that dead Pharoahs went to live among the stars.

That they believed it is evidence that it was true ?

[ippy]

Sorry, but I can see no evidence for belief in the immortality of kippers in human history or in the Christian bible.

You're right Alan, but that doesn't alter anything I said about Kippers, substitute Kippers for god/soul, there's just as much evidence for any one of the three of them.

The very best of necessarily kind and hopeful wishes to you Alan, you need them, ippy.

 

[Alan Burns]

Seeking God might mean some have to change their ways and some like their ways best, they might know it's not good for them but they continue any way and of course misery loves company, so they seem to round up who ever they can to share their dislike of God..

This theme was echoed in Sunday's Gospel reading just over a week ago.  In John's Gospel, Jesus talks of people who prefer to live in the darkness than come out into the light.  It does take strength and courage for people to leave their comfort zones and embrace the challenges of the Christian message, but God gives strength to those who seek Him.

[ippy]

This theme was echoed in Sunday's Gospel reading just over a week ago.  In John's Gospel, Jesus talks of people who prefer to live in the darkness than come out into the light.  It does take strength and courage for people to leave their comfort zones and embrace the challenges of the Christian message, but God gives strength to those who seek Him.

This theme was echoed in Sunday's Gospel reading just over a week ago. Where it says in John's Gospel, Jesus is supposed to have spoken about of people who prefer to live in the darkness than come out into the light. It does take strength and courage for people to leave their comfort zones and embrace the challenges of the fictitious Christian message, in spite of the lack of any viable evidence that might of backed it up, but there are still some that in spite of the lack of evidence, continue to kid themselves that God gives strength to those who seek Him, as though there were such a thing as a god to go looking for in the first place..

Kippers!

Hope you get better soon Alan, ippy.

P S Just a thought, there's a lot more evidence for Kippers than your imaginary god/soul.