Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

AB,

The "reason not to believe" any conjecture to be true is the absence of a cogent reason to justify the belief. That's why you don't believe in leprechauns. It's not difficult.

I do not know of any people who believe that a leprechaun suffered and died to save their immortal soul.

No they don't. You can "actively search for" god, leprechauns or any other conjecture being if you want to. That active searching though should presumably entail first trying to establish whether there's something to be searched for shouldn't it?

I continue to be amazed at your faith in what can be acheived by whatever emerges from physically determined material reactions.  To actively search for anything would require the emergent property to have control over the reactions it emerges from. 

And the mindless assertion to finish. So yet again - your problem here with attempting to evangelise for your beliefs is that you are entirely unable or unwilling to provide a cogent argument to justify those beliefs. The fallacious ones you've tried so far don't help you at all with that.

Your continued attempts to dismiss my arguments as fallacies provides yet further evidence of the amazing power of your emergent property to exert control over its material reactions.  But I forget that your ability to deliberately think things out will reveal that your ability to consciously think is just the way it seems, as at the deeper level all our thoughts are predetermined before we think them.     

[Alan Burns]

Nonsense.

A good God wouldn't hide in the first place.

But God is not hidden from the millions of Christians who have discovered Him.  I speak to Him every day.

Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door shall be opened unto you

[Nearly Sane]

But God is not hidden from the millions of Christians who have discovered Him.  I speak to Him every day.

Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door shall be opened unto you

Ask your god why it's a thug. Get back when you have an answer.

[torridon]

But God is not hidden from the millions of Christians who have discovered Him.  I speak to Him every day.

Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door shall be opened unto you

Typically evasive response, we have come to expect no better from you.

Try again, this time with honesty :

 - why would God hide in the first place ?
 - how come he hides so well that only minority of people succeed in finding him ?
 - if you speak to him daily, give us an example of a recent conversation, what you said, and what he said in response

[Stranger]

I do not know of any people who believe that a leprechaun suffered and died to save their immortal soul.

Evasive and irrelevant to the logical point that was made. If you want to convince people of your view, this kind of response achieves the opposite.

I continue to be amazed at your faith in what can be acheived by whatever emerges from physically determined material reactions.  To actively search for anything would require the emergent property to have control over the reactions it emerges from. 

Misrepresentation - again. The message you are conveying is that your faith has made you intellectually dishonest and unable to face logic.

Your continued attempts to dismiss my arguments as fallacies...

Your argument frequently do contain fallacies Alan, and the fact that you just ignore it when it's pointed out, instead of honestly trying to address the issue, again gives the impression of intellectual dishonesty and logic blindness.

...provides yet further evidence of the amazing power of your emergent property to exert control over its material reactions.  But I forget that your ability to deliberately think things out will reveal that your ability to consciously think is just the way it seems, as at the deeper level all our thoughts are predetermined before we think them.     

More dishonesty and misrepresentation.

If you wanted to put people off your faith, you couldn't be doing a better job.

[Stranger]

But God is not hidden from the millions of Christians who have discovered Him.

Why can't they agree with each other about this god, then?

[Roses]

But God is not hidden from the millions of Christians who have discovered Him.  I speak to Him every day.

Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door shall be opened unto you

Apart from as a product of your vivid imagination, you have never seen, heard, or touched god.

[Alan Burns]

Nature has given us freedom to use our imaginations to create a god ....

Such freedom cannot exist in a nature which is entirely determined by physically controlled reactions of material elements.

[Gordon]

Such freedom cannot exist in a nature which is entirely determined by physically controlled reactions of material elements.

Change the record, Alan: this one is worn out now (and it was a crap record anyway).

[Stranger]

Such freedom cannot exist in a nature which is entirely determined by physically controlled reactions of material elements.

So you endlessly assert, without the slightest hint of a sound justification...

[ekim]

Apart from as a product of your vivid imagination, you have never seen, heard, or touched god.

Ah, but you are wrong, my child.
Many people worship the God, Sol, who gives the world warmth, light and energy so that life can be sustained.  There are rules of engagement with this God, which, if you break them, he will punish you.  Thou shalt not directly gaze upon his countenance on pain of blindness.  Thou shalt not expose thy flesh to him when at his height and intensity at pain of burning and shrivelling.  Thou shalt not interfere with God's protective cloak around the planet at pain of flood, fire, tempest and scorched earth.  Many are his worshippers who spend much time and wealth to make pilgrimages to Holy places like Costa Brava where they spread out their prayer towels and submit to his presence.  The Germans even spread out their towels the night before so that they can be sure of preferential treatment.  There is often much sadness and depression and gnashing of teeth when God causes his cloud bearing and seasonal darkness to descend upon northern lands and Wales, but in his mercy He again shines forth to give hope to his followers.

[jeremyp]

Such freedom cannot exist in a nature which is entirely determined by physically controlled reactions of material elements.

yes they can.

[Enki]

Such freedom cannot exist in a nature which is entirely determined by physically controlled reactions of material elements.

You strike me as defensively clinging on to your faith by simply uttering repetitive assertions without the slightest pretence of debating and discussing anymore, hoping against hope that the people on this thread will somehow see it your way. This seems to me to be a bit of a desperate position, Alan. I wish you luck in extricating yourself from it.

[Roses]

Such freedom cannot exist in a nature which is entirely determined by physically controlled reactions of material elements.

IN YOUR OPINION.

[Alan Burns]

Furthermore, even though, as the evidence shows, much of what we do happens in the unconscious, there are sensible reasons to suggest that, in evolutionary terms, consciousness plays a part. Various suggestions have been put forward as reasons for our conscious awareness. The one I prefer is that it allows a feedback mechanism to the brain by being able to focus on meaningful data, allowing it(the brain) to more easily come to decisions.

Thanks for another detailed response, Enki
For starters, I would like to pick up on this point.

In the physically controlled material model, there can be no possibility of conscious feedback if, as experiments have shown, subconscious brain activity predetermines the choice before we are consciously aware of it.  In such a scenario, we can only react in a pre-programmed way to sensory data with no possibility of consciously driven choice over the reaction.  The human soul, however, would by its spiritual nature not be restricted by the time dependent laws of cause and effect in the material model, and must be able to do whatever is needed to invoke an act of conscious will in the material body.

[Nearly Sane]

Thanks for another detailed response, Enki
For starters, I would like to pick up on this point.

In the physically controlled material model, there can be no possibility of conscious feedback if, as experiments have shown, subconscious brain activity predetermines the choice before we are consciously aware of it.  In such a scenario, we can only react in a pre-programmed way to sensory data with no possibility of consciously driven choice over the reaction.  The human soul, however, would by its spiritual nature not be restricted by the time dependent laws of cause and effect in the material model, and must be able to do whatever is needed to invoke an act of conscious will in the material body.

Drivel

[ippy]

You strike me as defensively clinging on to your faith by simply uttering repetitive assertions without the slightest pretence of debating and discussing anymore, hoping against hope that the people on this thread will somehow see it your way. This seems to me to be a bit of a desperate position, Alan. I wish you luck in extricating yourself from it.

Be fair Enki, the poor bloke can't help it he's been thoroughly, well and truly successfully indoctrinated with this religious nonsense probably right from his earliest years and in spite of all of the logical, rational posts, like yours, he is getting from the forum, it's not that he is not listening it's just that he's unable to break out of the chains that have engineered him to be totally incapable of freeing himself from having a head full of RCC dogma.

That's why he keeps on posting such dopey senseless answers to any challenge he receives, it's not because he actually is dopey, on the contrary, I think it's rather sad.

Regards, ippy.

[Roses]

Be fair Enki, the poor bloke can't help it he's been thoroughly, well and truly successfully indoctrinated with this religious nonsense probably right from his earliest years and in spite of all of the logical, rational posts, like yours, he is getting from the forum, it's not that he is not listening it's just that he's unable to break out of the chains that have engineered him to be totally incapable of freeing freeing himself from having a head full of RCC dogma.

That's why he keeps on posting such dopey senseless answers to any challenge he receives, it's not because he actually is dopey, on the contrary, I think it's rather sad.

Regards, ippy.

I agree with your post.

[Stranger]

In the physically controlled material model, there can be no possibility of conscious feedback if, as experiments have shown, subconscious brain activity predetermines the choice before we are consciously aware of it.  In such a scenario, we can only react in a pre-programmed way to sensory data with no possibility of consciously driven choice over the reaction.

Utter bollocks.

The human soul, however, would by its spiritual nature not be restricted by the time dependent laws of cause and effect in the material model, and must be able to do whatever is needed to invoke an act of conscious will in the material body.

Once again totally ignoring the logical 'problem' that to the extent you detach any "act of conscious will" from cause and effect (material being utterly irrelevant- something else you endlessly ignore), it becomes random, by definition.

Why do you keep on with this idiotic repetition? Are you actually trying to put people off your faith?

[Christine]

Utter bollocks.

Once again totally ignoring the logical 'problem' that to the extent you detach any "act of conscious will" from cause and effect (material being utterly irrelevant- something else you endlessly ignore), it becomes random, by definition.

Why do you keep on with this idiotic repetition? Are you actually trying to put people off your faith?

It's all he's got, judging by the evidence of his posts.  The ineffectiveness of conscious feedback is certainly evident in the particular case of Alan Burns even if the rest of us are able to learn new stuff.

[Alan Burns]

So you endlessly assert, without the slightest hint of a sound justification...

But it is not an assertion.  It is an inevitable deduction based on the simple truth that we have no control over the laws of physics.  So if we are entirely driven by nothing but physically defined material reactions we become just an inevitable reaction (or emergence if you prefer) defined entirely by those physically controlled reactions.  And the more you try to come up with convoluted explanations for how you can reconcile this with the reality we all perceive, the more evidence you provide for your consciously driven freedom to guide your own thoughts.  In essence, it is a logical impossibility for physical reactions alone to come up with a viable explanation for how such an explanation can be formulated.

[Sebastian Toe]

But it is not an assertion.  It is an inevitable deduction based on the simple truth that we have no control over the laws of physics.  So if we are entirely driven by nothing but physically defined material reactions we become just an inevitable reaction (or emergence if you prefer) defined entirely by those physically controlled reactions.  And the more you try to come up with convoluted explanations for how you can reconcile this with the reality we all perceive, the more evidence you provide for your consciously driven freedom to guide your own thoughts.  In essence, it is a logical impossibility for physical reactions alone to come up with a viable explanation for how such an explanation can be formulated.

Another fine example of the product of a biological brain working entirely under deterministic principles.
No soul required.

[Roses]

But it is not an assertion.  It is an inevitable deduction based on the simple truth that we have no control over the laws of physics.  So if we are entirely driven by nothing but physically defined material reactions we become just an inevitable reaction (or emergence if you prefer) defined entirely by those physically controlled reactions.  And the more you try to come up with convoluted explanations for how you can reconcile this with the reality we all perceive, the more evidence you provide for your consciously driven freedom to guide your own thoughts.  In essence, it is a logical impossibility for physical reactions alone to come up with a viable explanation for how such an explanation can be formulated.

It is your inevitable deduction, not that of the rest of us.

[Stranger]

But it is not an assertion.

It is because you cannot back it up either with evidence or reasoning, no matter how often you repeat, over and over and over again, illogical drivel like this:-

It is an inevitable deduction based on the simple truth that we have no control over the laws of physics.

Nobody is claiming otherwise. But for the 10 millionth time, the logic has nothing to do with physics - no matter how many times you dishonestly, or stupidly, misrepresent it.

So if we are entirely driven by nothing but physically defined material reactions we become just an inevitable reaction (or emergence if you prefer) defined entirely by those physically controlled reactions.

Argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy. You have provided no evidence and no reasoning to suggest that this is not the case.

And the more you try to come up with convoluted explanations for how you can reconcile this with the reality we all perceive...

Since you have provided not one hint of a shred of any evidence or reasoning as to why it in any way conflicts with "the reality we all perceive" (incredulity aside), I have no reason to come up with any explanations.

However, if you genuinely think that the logic of not being determined meaning random is convoluted, who took your MESA test for you? Otherwise, please stop lying about it.

...the more evidence you provide for your consciously driven freedom to guide your own thoughts.

Nobody is disputing our ability to reason. Claiming it as evidence for your self-contradictory 'explanation' of it is tantamount to lying.

In essence, it is a logical impossibility for physical reactions alone to come up with a viable explanation for how such an explanation can be formulated.

And, after all that nonsense, you've just re-asserted the same thing you started with. Not one hint of the promised "deduction".

This has all been gone over countless times, why can't you just stop the mindless, pointless repetition! Have the guts to at least try to face up to the counterarguments, otherwise you're just making you and your faith look stupid.

[Walter]

Be fair Enki, the poor bloke can't help it he's been thoroughly, well and truly successfully indoctrinated with this religious nonsense probably right from his earliest years and in spite of all of the logical, rational posts, like yours, he is getting from the forum, it's not that he is not listening it's just that he's unable to break out of the chains that have engineered him to be totally incapable of freeing himself from having a head full of RCC dogma.

That's why he keeps on posting such dopey senseless answers to any challenge he receives, it's not because he actually is dopey, on the contrary, I think it's rather sad.

Regards, ippy.

He's a Troll , a very good one at that ! 😱