Searching for GOD...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I have this. The days of the week are coloured to me, and have been since I was a child.

Can you explain further?

[SteveH]

No this is not bound to be the case.

Just because two people can look at something, and both say RED, it does not mean their experience of it is the same.
IF you could feel that they feel, you might say "No no that's BLUE".

Al you can say is that they say the same word to describe the experience of seeing Red like you do.

I said "Even though it's possible that they experience it differently". I also pointed out that that is impossible to falsify, so is useless as a hypothesis, and can safely be ignored.

As it has been pointed out, in the real world, there is no sound, no colour, no taste.

Yes, and I specifically agreed, in the post you quote.

[torridon]

I know that this borrowing and returning can be used to consciously manipulate temporary order out of chaos without contravening the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but to expect it to happen by chance events is a bit extreme to say the least.

Order comes out of disorder all the time, this is perfectly natural and inevitable.  In a snowstorm billions of symmetrical snowflakes form spontaneously in defiance of the overarching entropy gradient, do you imagine this only happens because god gets to work whenever the weather is bad to defeat his own thermodynamic laws ?

[torridon]

My view is that God does not override the rules of nature, but consciously manipulates natural forces to bring about His awesome creation of life as we know it.  Just as humans can consciously manipulate natural forces to bring about man  made creations.  In this, we can see the power of human will as a reflection of God's will.

Yes we know it is your view, but there needs to be some justification for it.  Just as a snowflake will spontaneously form wherever suitable conditions pertain, so also carbon compounds spontaneously join into long chain compounds wherever suitable conditions pertain.  How could we discern between life that arose spontaneously and life that arose because some god engineered the prerequisite conditions to be just right in some particular locale ?  Your reasoning boils down to claiming that, for example, Earth is in a goldilocks zone because god consciously put it there.  It is a matter of simple probabilities that some planets are going to be in a goldilocks zone and some aren't.  What is your evidence that our planet has been 'put' here rather than just happening to be here as an inevitable statistical instance ?

[SusanDoris]

Order comes out of disorder all the time, this is perfectly natural and inevitable.  In a snowstorm billions of symmetrical snowflakes form spontaneously in defiance of the overarching entropy gradient, do you imagine this only happens because god gets to work whenever the weather is bad to defeat his own thermodynamic laws ?
[/quote
It would be interesting to know the thought processes that go through AB's mind as he reads your post and how the automatic filter works which will produce a selection of a sort of standard set of woolly answers. He seems completely unable to break out of the trap he is in in order to take an objective look at it and thenmake a thought-out logical decision... which is unlikely, I suppose, to be to stay out!!

ETA I'd just like to know why everybody else isn't up and about, and posting? This is the best time of day and they jolly well ought to be!!

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

I have this. The days of the week are coloured to me, and have been since I was a child.

It is numbers with me. Low numbers, say 1-100, are shades of red whilst higher numbers such as 1,000,000 are shades of yellow. The weird thing is that when I think of the number one million I see yellow but if you wrote the same number on a piece of paper in green ink I would see that it is green but still think yellow.

As far I can remember this has always been the case, but I was in my thirties before I found out that this was not the same for everyone.

[Alan Burns]

It would be interesting to know the thought processes that go through AB's mind as he reads your post and how the automatic filter works which will produce a selection of a sort of standard set of woolly answers. He seems completely unable to break out of the trap he is in in order to take an objective look at it and thenmake a thought-out logical decision... which is unlikely, I suppose, to be to stay out!!

Actually I find it interesting to see how different posters react to my posts and do their best to defend their own corners in their own chosen ways.

Some examples come to mind:
Gordon likes to smother everything I say with his over active fallacy detector.
Bluehillside likes to compare everything with Leprechaun theology.
Torridon comes up with lots of technical jargon which he assumes explains everything.
Stranger seems to think that everything is entirely pre determined, even his own freedom to choose.
Ippy thinks my mental reasoning has been permanently damaged by some form of indoctrination.
You, Susan, just label everything I say as woolly and compliment anyone who disagrees with me.

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

[Maeght]

We know you are certain Alan, but why do you think you being certain should make any difference to anyone else?

[Gordon]

Actually I find it interesting to see how different posters react to my posts and do their best to defend their own corners in their own chosen ways.

Some examples come to mind:
Gordon likes to smother everything I say with his over active fallacy detector.
Bluehillside likes to compare everything with Leprechaun theology.
Torridon comes up with lots of technical jargon which he assumes explains everything.
Stranger seems to think that everything is entirely pre determined, even his own freedom to choose.
Ippy thinks my mental reasoning has been permanently damaged by some form of indoctrination.
You, Susan, just label everything I say as woolly and compliment anyone who disagrees with me.

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

I'm not defending a 'corner' though: I have no 'corner' to defend. I'm just pointing out the rather obvious fallacious flaws in your own position as you attempt to defend the indefensible.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB.

Bluehillside likes to compare everything with Leprechaun theology.

Bluehillside does no such thing What bluehillside actually does is to explain that, when an argument you attempt for “God” works equally for leprechauns, then it’s probably not a good argument.

It’s really not that difficult to grasp if only you’d try.

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.

Nothing anyone says could ever do that because you’re utterly blind to the reasoning that undoes you.

I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

That’s not you problem. Your actual problem is that your certainty on its own is epistmemically worthless for anyone else, and what you really need is the “literary prowess” finally to construct an argument that would validate your certainty that isn’t logically hopeless.

You've also incidentally egregiously misrepresented the other people you referenced in your post.   

[Stranger]

Gordon likes to smother everything I say with his over active fallacy detector.
Bluehillside likes to compare everything with Leprechaun theology.
Torridon comes up with lots of technical jargon which he assumes explains everything.
Stranger seems to think that everything is entirely pre determined, even his own freedom to choose.
Ippy thinks my mental reasoning has been permanently damaged by some form of indoctrination.
You, Susan, just label everything I say as woolly and compliment anyone who disagrees with me.

Simplistic and inaccurate (like much of what you say, come to think of it).

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

Literary prowess to express your certainty isn't your problem - I'm sure everybody is convinced of it. The problem is that absolute certainty, without any evidence or reasoning to support it, and despite clear logic that undermines it, is neither persuasive nor attractive, it's just rather sad and pitiable.

[SusanDoris]

AB

You do not need more words - you just need enough words to tell us about one piece of objective evidence to back up your woolly assertions.

[floo]

Actually I find it interesting to see how different posters react to my posts and do their best to defend their own corners in their own chosen ways.

Some examples come to mind:
Gordon likes to smother everything I say with his over active fallacy detector.
Bluehillside likes to compare everything with Leprechaun theology.
Torridon comes up with lots of technical jargon which he assumes explains everything.
Stranger seems to think that everything is entirely pre determined, even his own freedom to choose.
Ippy thinks my mental reasoning has been permanently damaged by some form of indoctrination.
You, Susan, just label everything I say as woolly and compliment anyone who disagrees with me.

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

AB what you don't seem to grasp is that whilst you firmly believe your god exists and all that you claim for it to be true, you don't present any evidence that can be verified to support your assertions.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB.

Bluehillside does no such thing What bluehillside actually does is to explain that, when an argument you attempt for “God” works equally for leprechauns, then it’s probably not a good argument.
   

The tagline on this old movie poster sums up your posts on this matter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darby_O%27Gill_and_the_Little_People#/media/File:Darby_o_gill_and_the_little_people.jpg

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Darby O'Gillside and the Little People.

[Stranger]

The tagline on this old movie poster sums up your posts on this matter

The point sails majestically over Vlad's head, yet again...     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The point sails majestically over Vlad's head, yet again...     

Appeal to ridicule is always apparent to me old chap.
You obviously failed to notice the Leprechauns on the poster.

[Stranger]

The point sails majestically over Vlad's head, yet again...     

Appeal to ridicule is always apparent to me old chap.

And again - look up!

It isn't an appeal to ridicule - as I pointed out in #27453, that's one of Alan's (many) fallacies.

[torridon]

Actually I find it interesting to see how different posters react to my posts and do their best to defend their own corners in their own chosen ways.

...
Torridon comes up with lots of technical jargon which he assumes explains everything.
..'

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

I don't think you are lacking literary skills, so much as a willingness to engage with the views of others and findings from research.  When I ask my eldest son (he's a cell biologist) about what he does at work, I start to glaze over after about 10 mins of ubiquitin ligases and lymphatic endothelial cells and transcription-mediated chromatin remodeling. But I don't presume to tell him how to do his job or infer he doesn't know what he is talking about.  If I don't understand the jargon, that is my shortcoming.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Stranger,

And again - look up!

It isn't an appeal to ridicule - as I pointed out in #27453, that's one of Alan's (many) fallacies.

He never will. The charge of an appeal to ridicule is a lie he repeats over and over again, presumably in the hope that no-one will notice that it is a lie. The actual argument – which concerns the quality of arguments used to validate “god” when the identical arguments lead equally to leprechauns – is something he’ll never address.

The odd thing is that, in principle at least, it’d be simple to do. All he’d have to do is to explain how, when the outcome is “god”, that in some way reaches back to the argument that led to it to make it a good one, whereas when the outcome is leprechauns that cannot do the same thing for the same arguments.

In practice though there is so far as I know no way to do that, which is why he relies on mendacity for his response.

[Enki]

.........
But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

Well, Gerard Manley Hopkins did have considerable literary prowess as his Christian poem,  'The Windhover' shows in abundance. For me it is a breathtakingly marvellous decription of  a kestrel hovering which I find a most beautiful and awe inspiring experience that never fails to delight me.

Hopkins powerfully describes this sense of awe admirably, using powerful Anglo-Saxon derived rhythmic alliteration to express his thoughts. For me, that he sees the bird as a symbol for Christ is an integral part of this literary masterpiece and part of its beauty.

However, does it influence me in any way to convince me of the veracity of Christianity? Not  at all. I would require much, much more than a person having the ability to express the sincerity of his Jesuit inspired Catholic beliefs in beautiful language, in order for me to be converted to Christianity. Conviction isn't the problem, Alan.

[SteveH]

AB what you don't seem to grasp is that whilst you firmly believe your god exists and all that you claim for it to be true, you don't present any evidence that can be verified to support your assertions.

That's bloody rich, coming from the woman who never presents any arguments or evidence for her "IMO" posts, ever.

[Bramble]

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

I came upon this article recently https://tinyurl.com/y979zvwp

The first 3 paragraphs sum up some of my own suspicions about affirmations of absolute religious certainty.

I can't help thinking that the demand for such certainty must have deep insecurity at its root - and as its fruit. 

[floo]

I came upon this article recently https://tinyurl.com/y979zvwp

The first 3 paragraphs sum up some of my own suspicions about affirmations of absolute religious certainty.

I can't help thinking that the demand for such certainty must have deep insecurity at its root - and as its fruit.

An interesting comment.

[ippy]

Actually I find it interesting to see how different posters react to my posts and do their best to defend their own corners in their own chosen ways.

Some examples come to mind:
Gordon likes to smother everything I say with his over active fallacy detector.
Bluehillside likes to compare everything with Leprechaun theology.
Torridon comes up with lots of technical jargon which he assumes explains everything.
Stranger seems to think that everything is entirely pre determined, even his own freedom to choose.
Ippy thinks my mental reasoning has been permanently damaged by some form of indoctrination.
You, Susan, just label everything I say as woolly and compliment anyone who disagrees with me.

But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way.

"But nothing I read on this thread comes close to causing me any doubts about the reality of my own spirituality and of God's existence.  I just wish I had the literary prowess to express my certainty in a more convincing way".

Some are far more susceptible to indoctrination than others, I think it's very understandable but sad in your case, as with any successful indoctrination those indoctrinated don't think they have been indoctrinated and of all faiths to be indoctrinated into hardly a shining example the R C Church, of all organisations to have been introduced to, just how unlucky can anyone get? 

You can express yourself well enough but the trouble, is for you, that there is no way around arguing for something that hasn't got an iota of evidence supporting it.

Necessarily good and kind wishes to you Alan, ippy.