Searching for GOD...

[Roses]

I am old - yes! Muddled - definitely Not!!

Muddled you aren't Susan that is for sure, which can't be said of a certain other poster.

[SusanDoris]

Muddled you aren't Susan that is for sure, which can't be said of a certain other poster.

Thank you, LR . 

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I am old - yes! Muddled - definitely Not!!

Susan - you have misunderstood again. I did not make a general statement about you at all. I do not think you are muddled. I think posters, including me, sometimes get muddled about what was written in a post.

What I wrote in relation to your post was that " you have got yourself in a muddle and misunderstood what Steve H said in his post."

And I also wrote "LR then muddles non-belief in a god with non-existence of a god by apparently equating the two concepts as being the same."

And then "Susan quotes Steve's above post and while still being in a muddle about the difference between non-belief and non-existence has now got into a further muddle by confusing non-existence with existence"

So I was talking about specific posts you wrote, not you as a person.

[Outrider]

Non-belief in anything is always the defsult position. You should only believe in anything if there's good eviidence or logical arguments for it. The more intelligent and well-educated religious would agree, but would say that there's enough evidence to justify belief in God.

I am - manifestly - not a believer, but from where I look it doesn't seem that way to me.  It seems like belief in gods is an emotional more than intellectual exercise; it is, in some of the more intellectually capable believers, followed by a range of more or less complicated attempts to validate that belief, but I always feel like the belief comes first, and the arguments are ad hoc.

I've never come across someone that convincingly claimed they came to belief through the evidence; they believed, and they feel the evidence supports that belief, but it was that order.

Which is not to say that there aren't any number of atheists in the same boat, never believed and look at the (lack of) evidence and feel that justifies their stance, but there are few times when people claim they had faith, looked at the arguments and their faith wasn't sufficient any more.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

I am - manifestly - not a believer, but from where I look it doesn't seem that way to me.  It seems like belief in gods is an emotional more than intellectual exercise; it is, in some of the more intellectually capable believers, followed by a range of more or less complicated attempts to validate that belief, but I always feel like the belief comes first, and the arguments are ad hoc.

I've never come across someone that convincingly claimed they came to belief through the evidence; they believed, and they feel the evidence supports that belief, but it was that order.

Which is not to say that there aren't any number of atheists in the same boat, never believed and look at the (lack of) evidence and feel that justifies their stance, but there are few times when people claim they had faith, looked at the arguments and their faith wasn't sufficient any more.

O.

But then there are those who lacked faith, who claimed to look at arguments, or had experiences that they saw as evidence who then had faith so I don't think that the path is the same way. I in theory had faith being brought up in one, but when I stopped believing it wasn't arguments or evidence - I just realised I didn't believe. Now I could give you a number of things at the time that had an effect but I can't be sure that that isn't just as much of a post hoc rationalisation as any person talking about a faith belief. Further given my analysis of what I might think is moral or good, it feels to me much the same as any faith claim.


I think different approaches are more how we perceive as individuals as much as any rationales.

[SusanDoris]

Susan - you have misunderstood again. I did not make a general statement about you at all. I do not think you are muddled. I think posters, including me, sometimes get muddled about what was written in a post.
<snip>
So I was talking about specific posts you wrote, not you as a person.

No problem - thank you for saying.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

I was thinking more along the lines of the argument that you need to be introduced to the concept of gods or leprechauns or brought up with these concepts in order for there to even be the possibility of holding a belief in them. So if you have never been introduced to the concept the default position is atheism or a-leprechaunism.

What do you call someone who has a lack of belief in leprechauns because they have not been introduced to the concept?

Yes, they’re both “a-isms”: if I really believed in the great celestial being Zyg23 but kept it all to myself then you’d be an “a-Zyg23ist” albeit in the relatively trivial sense that you can’t reject an argument for something that hasn’t been made. By contrast if I set out my arguments for Zyg23 and you identified that they were all rubbish, then you’d also be a “a-Zyg23ist”, but for reasons of intellectual engagement. You could though call the two types of a-isms “passive” and “active” or similar I suppose.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SteveH,

Non-belief in anything is always the defsult position. You should only believe in anything if there's good eviidence or logical arguments for it. The more intelligent and well-educated religious would agree, but would say that there's enough evidence to justify belief in God.

A fair point but I'm rather with Outy when says that his experience (and mine) is that religious people tend to be religious for various, essentially emotional, reasons and then find arguments that they convince themselves sufficiently fit the beliefs to justify them - confirmation bias in other words. If you look at AB's desperately wrong attempts to justify his beliefs for example, it's hard to imagine that he could have had no faith beliefs and then been given the arguments he tries, found them convincing and then become a theist. I'm fairly confident (though can't be sure) he has the intellectual acuity to falsify exactly the same arguments if I tried them to justify a different faith belief I had, but whenever I've raised the problem with him he just ignores it.

I've said this before by the way, but I'd (genuinely) be really interested if a "more intelligent and well-educated religious" person shared some of the arguments that convince him or her here, but so far none have done so.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

My understanding of what Steve H said was that there can be arguments that a theist finds convincing enough to lead them to hold a belief in a particular concept of god. My experience is that it would be a similar combination of a reasoning and emotional process as it is to hold certain other ethical or moral beliefs that I hold - you have a sub-conscious element and your conscious brain refines the concept to something that makes sense to the individual and that the individual perceives as having a positive impact on the individual's life. And you keep developing the concept as you go along over a period of time through a mix of sub-conscious/ conscious inputs such as personal experiences, information you acquire about the concept, exposure to different cultures etc.

That's a separate issue from whether their belief in a particular concept  corresponds to an objectively provable fact. It is impossible to objectively prove the existence of a concept that cannot be detected or measured in some way using the tools we use to objectively verify things. Often the concept is a mix of hopes and ideals and there are no tools to verify hopes and ideals.

So no one can supply you with arguments that you are guaranteed to find convincing, that would prove the existence of a concept that another person perceives has a positive impact on their life. You will not necessarily share that perception - it's subjective.

[Nearly Sane]

....

So no one can supply you with arguments that you are guaranteed to find convincing, that would prove the existence of a concept that another person perceives has a positive impact on their life. You will not necessarily share that perception - it's subjective.

I have been thinking for some time that there is difference in perception for some - see link below to post I put up some time ago

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13903.msg673968#msg673968

I found echoes of that in this about monism/dualism which while not exactly mapping to theism/atheism are in some ways related - particularly to the ongoing discussion of 'soul' on here

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/is-your-true-self-a-kind-of-ghost-1.4093448?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR3ay_x16CHf1MQTYWnjnziEDEaj60CDL_qbgCdqON2QNOKNNnRA6_SB_Qo

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

I’m assuming your last was addressed to me.

My understanding of what Steve H said was that there can be arguments that a theist finds convincing enough to lead them to hold a belief in a particular concept of god.

Yes, but my point was that exactly the same arguments used to justify different beliefs wouldn’t persuade them at all because they’d identify the flaws in them. Clearly the same argument can’t be valid for one but invalid for another (the conclusion can’t somehow reach back to the invalid argument that justified it to make it somehow logically sound), which is why confirmation bias seems such an obvious culprit here.   

My experience is that it would be a similar combination of a reasoning and emotional process as it is to hold certain other ethical or moral beliefs that I hold - you have a sub-conscious element and your conscious brain refines the concept to something that makes sense to the individual and that the individual perceives as having a positive impact on the individual's life. And you keep developing the concept as you go along over a period of time through a mix of sub-conscious/ conscious inputs such as personal experiences, information you acquire about the concept, exposure to different cultures etc.

Maybe, but claims of fact (god, a resurrection etc) are in a different category to ethical beliefs (“gay marriage is wrong” etc). People tend not to argue that their ethical beliefs are categorically, objectively, demonstrably true whereas they do for claims of fact about their religious beliefs (religious services are full of “sure and certains” etc). 

That's a separate issue from whether their belief in a particular concept  corresponds to an objectively provable fact. It is impossible to objectively prove the existence of a concept that cannot be detected or measured in some way using the tools we use to objectively verify things. Often the concept is a mix of hopes and ideals and there are no tools to verify hopes and ideals.

Yes it is impossible, but that’s a problem for the theist, not for the atheist (burden of proof again). Reason and logic are also tools though – and they always fail when they’re attempted to demonstrate religious claims of fact.   

So no one can supply you with arguments that you are guaranteed to find convincing, that would prove the existence of a concept that another person perceives has a positive impact on their life. You will not necessarily share that perception - it's subjective.

Guaranteed is a bit strong, but I disagree. I don’t need to share their perception, I just need to know whether the argument to justify the belief is valid or invalid. Fortunately that’s not subjective at all because we have codified rules of logic that have been tested in real life situations and found to hold. All I have to do therefore is to use those benchmarks when considering theist arguments to justify their claims of fact to know whether or not the arguments are sound. Thus if, say, a theist is trying to falsify an argument and begins, “but that would mean” when the “that” is just something he happens not to like I know that that’s a fallacy (argumentum ad consequentiam – one of AB’s favourites by the way) so I can dismiss it without further consideration because I know already that it’s wrong. Sharing a subjective perception is neither here nor there for this purpose – either the argument being attempted survives the objective tools I have or it doesn’t. If ever I came across an argument for “god” etc that I couldn’t falsify though, then in other words I would have no choice but to become a sandal-wearing god botherer tout suite.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

You will have to argue AB's statements with him and the statements from the pulpit with the people who make them. Not every theist holds the same view as AB and a theist cannot speak for another theist. I do not try to falsify other beliefs - I just disagree with them because the concepts in those beliefs do not appear as beneficial to me as other alternative beliefs. I arrive at this conclusion through a mixture of sub-conscious and conscious inputs.

As I have argued before,  I do not think God is a fact because a fact (as we seem to use the word) is something that can be tested, measured and proved objectively, therefore God cannot be a fact by that definition because none of those criteria apply to the concept. God is a label people assign to a particular concept that they believe in.

I do think God can exist but again, not if the word "exist" is defined as something that can be objectively tested, measured etc etc see para above. So I am not sure what the word to use is if something exists as a concept outside of time and space.

Also, not sure what to use instead of "exist", if you take the philosophical view that things do not 'exist' independent of the mind.

[Dicky Underpants]

No problem - thank you for saying.

Hello Susan.

You are certainly not a muddled person. In fact, I've rarely seen you misunderstand anything that other people have written. However, I believe that on this occasion you did misunderstand Steve's original post.

[Dicky Underpants]

I think you have misread what Steve H was saying. He has not said there are books that prove the existence of gods but that there are many arguments against God's existence. He doesn't appear to be using the NPF but rather expressing a dislike for LR's approach. Whether that dislike has any real.justification is another matter but he's allowed to state what he feels.

Yes indeed. And you have pin-pointed (along with Gabriella) the moment of misunderstanding of Steve's comments, which then spawned a huge barrage of irrelevant comments, some of which contained interesting information in themselves, but were not germane to the original point.

[Dicky Underpants]

No Susan - the clear implication is that you have got yourself in a muddle and misunderstood what Steve H said in his post. In #37888 LR says "A certain poster accuses me of not providing any evidence to support my non belief." LR then muddles non-belief in a god with non-existence of a god by apparently equating the two concepts as being the same.

Steve H corrects LR in #37889 by stating that "Hundreds or thousands of weighty volumes have been published attacking belief and defending non-belief with closely-reasoned arguments and evidence, so why can't you come up with a few? Actually, to do you justice, you do mention the apparent cruelty of God as described in the |O, but that's about it."

Susan then chips in with #37890 where she also equates non-belief with non-existence while quoting Steve H's post #37888 about non-belief.

Steve responds in #37892 with a list of books that back up his post quoted by Susan that there are books with reasoned arguments for non-belief. He also states in #37892 that "I don't necessarily accept all these arguments, and some are only arguments against certain types of belief, but they are arguments that are used." (My emphasis)

In #37894 Susan quotes Steve's above post and while still being in a muddle about the difference between non-belief and non-existence has now got into a further muddle by confusing non-existence with existence as she says "The clear implication in the sequence of posts just above you are saying such books are proving the existence of God, which is why I queried it."

So it appears Susan has read "non-belief" as "non-existence" in Steve H's posts and then erroneously made the leap to NPF rather than engaging brain to understand what was actually written.

Very well sorted out Gabriella. I would have thought that might be the last word on this matter, but apparently not.

[Dicky Underpants]

NS,

Misunderstanding or not, that was nonetheless the question Susan asked - which is why SteveH's spirited response did not address that question.

This is unworthy of you, blue. Unless things can be traced back to the original misunderstanding (which in this case was Susan's), we're just about in the position of the misguided souls who poured out unending blather to support the Ptolemaic system of cosmology, with its labyrinthine epicycles which spawned further epicycles which spawned....

[Dicky Underpants]

SteveH,

Couple of fallacies there. First, unless Floo is making claims of her own the burden of proof does not require that she makes cogent arguments too. If her statement that AB does not provide good reason or evidence of his own is true (and it is) that’s all that’s necessary for the point to stand. I’d have thought your ire would be better directed at AB for ignoring the arguments that falsify him and for never providing cogent counter-arguments of his own rather than at the person who points that out.

Second, you’ve tried a fallacy called the “tu quoque” (“you too”). Whether or not Floo is guilty of the same failings as AB has no relevance to the fact of AB’s failings.

Indeed, this has no relevance to AB's failings which have been unpicked endlessly. I understood Steve to simply be taking issue with LR's decidedly bald approach, which does indeed involve making claims of her own, usually summed up in the words "The god of the bible is an evil psycho". Now, I share with you and NS the ignostic approach, in that I think all statements about "God" are largely meaningless - and this applies especially to the multifarious ways the various writers of the Bible have expressed their beliefs over the centuries of history during which the Bible was written. I have no idea what the phrase "The god of the Bible" means - have you?

[Dicky Underpants]

You will have to argue AB's statements with him and the statements from the pulpit with the people who make them. Not every theist holds the same view as AB and a theist cannot speak for another theist. I do not try to falsify other beliefs - I just disagree with them because the concepts in those beliefs do not appear as beneficial to me as other alternative beliefs. I arrive at this conclusion through a mixture of sub-conscious and conscious inputs.

As I have argued before,  I do not think God is a fact because a fact (as we seem to use the word) is something that can be tested, measured and proved objectively, therefore God cannot be a fact by that definition because none of those criteria apply to the concept. God is a label people assign to a particular concept that they believe in.

I do think God can exist but again, not if the word "exist" is defined as something that can be objectively tested, measured etc etc see para above. So I am not sure what the word to use is if something exists as a concept outside of time and space.

Also, not sure what to use instead of "exist", if you take the philosophical view that things do not 'exist' independent of the mind.

Excellent.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

Small piece of housekeeping: if you address your posts to the person you’re talking to it helps avoid the risk of confusion. Usually I can work it out from the context of the post, but sometimes not when several posts have led up to it. Thanks.

You will have to argue AB's statements with him and the statements from the pulpit with the people who make them. Not every theist holds the same view as AB and a theist cannot speak for another theist. I do not try to falsify other beliefs - I just disagree with them because the concepts in those beliefs do not appear as beneficial to me as other alternative beliefs. I arrive at this conclusion through a mixture of sub-conscious and conscious inputs.

But many theists will gather around the same but wrong arguments to justify their beliefs and to expect you to have them too therefore. That’s evangelism, and that’s the point. As for falsification, I expect that you do even at an instinctive level – if for example I told you that you should also hold my belief in Zeus and that the wishes of Zeus should be taught as facts to your children you would quickly dismiss my reasons.

Yes, we have been around your “beneficial” point before. Essentially what that says is that a belief is beneficial – doubtless others in different times and places have found just as much benefit from their beliefs in things you’d find to be ludicrous – but it tells you nothing at all about whether the thing that’s believed in is real or imaginary.   

As I have argued before,  I do not think God is a fact because a fact (as we seem to use the word) is something that can be tested, measured and proved objectively, therefore God cannot be a fact by that definition because none of those criteria apply to the concept. God is a label people assign to a particular concept that they believe in.

Which is a very well for them, but gives them no warranty at all to expect others to treat seriously the claims of fact they make, let alone to insist they have them too. So far as I can tell epistemically “god” and leprechauns are literally equivalent for this purpose.     

I do think God can exist…

I can't get even that far because I have no idea what you mean by “God”. It’s a bit like me saying, “I do think that Zig23 can exist”, but ok…

…but again, not if the word "exist" is defined as something that can be objectively tested, measured etc etc see para above. So I am not sure what the word to use is if something exists as a concept outside of time and space.

Incoherent? ; - )

Also, not sure what to use instead of "exist", if you take the philosophical view that things do not 'exist' independent of the mind.

I’m not sure that that’s “the” philosophical view. You’re thinking of Bishop Berkeley perhaps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) but I think the more generally accepted paradigm is that there’s an “out there” world, albeit one that we cannot with a high level of confidence be sure we perceive accurately.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I have been thinking for some time that there is difference in perception for some - see link below to post I put up some time ago

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13903.msg673968#msg673968

I found echoes of that in this about monism/dualism which while not exactly mapping to theism/atheism are in some ways related - particularly to the ongoing discussion of 'soul' on here

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/is-your-true-self-a-kind-of-ghost-1.4093448?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR3ay_x16CHf1MQTYWnjnziEDEaj60CDL_qbgCdqON2QNOKNNnRA6_SB_Qo

Very interesting read NS. I want to try a Persinger Helmet. I cannot recall sensing the presence of anything I then attributed to paranormal concepts I am familiar with due to cultural influences. But I do recall sensing something that I attributed to the concept of a monotheistic god based on the ideas about gods that I had come across. I assume this was because I sensed it at the same moment I was praying so it was an easy and pleasing link for me to choose to make. But it was not a presence so much as a feeling of emotional pain being extinguished by a flow of soothing feelings - it felt like the scene in towering inferno where they blow up the water tanks at the top of the tower and water cascades down the building almost instantly putting out the fires in its path as it travels down the tower. 

I sometimes find myself experiencing apperception so I seem to be a dualist according to your irish times link. I am not sure what "happier being part of a bigger world" means. I like that I am insignificant and part of a bigger world as that takes the pressure off - that seems to be more in line with monist thinking - but I also like thinking of myself as an individual, which makes me a dualist. But I have no preoccupation with souls and continuing on after I die. So not sure whether I am a dualist or a monist.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi Gabriella,

Small piece of housekeeping: if you address your posts to the person you’re talking to it helps avoid the risk of confusion. Usually I can work it out from the context of the post, but sometimes not when several posts have led up to it. Thanks.

Sorry - will try to do that.

But many theists will gather around the same but wrong arguments to justify their beliefs and to expect you to have them too therefore. That’s evangelism, and that’s the point. As for falsification, I expect that you do even at an instinctive level – if for example I told you that you should also hold my belief in Zeus and that the wishes of Zeus should be taught as facts to your children you would quickly dismiss my reasons.

Yes and I similarly support your argument that any concept of gods should not be taught as facts.

Yes, we have been around your “beneficial” point before. Essentially what that says is that a belief is beneficial – doubtless others in different times and places have found just as much benefit from their beliefs in things you’d find to be ludicrous – but it tells you nothing at all about whether the thing that’s believed in is real or imaginary.

I agree and as many before have said, gods are not truth-apt and therefore based on how we use the word "real" in the English language I do not think we can determine if they are real or imaginary.   

Which is a very well for them, but gives them no warranty at all to expect others to treat seriously the claims of fact they make, let alone to insist they have them too. So far as I can tell epistemically “god” and leprechauns are literally equivalent for this purpose.

Yes many theists are fine with others dismissing their beliefs - whether that is other theists dismissing their beliefs or atheists dismissing their beliefs. If some beliefs are treated more seriously than others I think it is for cultural reasons and also because that particular belief has wider public appeal or has acquired powerful patronage or a lobby group has been particularly slick in their marketing of that belief compared to other beliefs.   

I can't get even that far because I have no idea what you mean by “God”. It’s a bit like me saying, “I do think that Zig23 can exist”, but ok…

Ok that's you. But there are others who do understand the concept I am getting at, though they will probably have their own individual slants on it.

Incoherent? ; - )

Yes - I also think the concepts of god can be incoherent.

I’m not sure that that’s “the” philosophical view. You’re thinking of Bishop Berkeley perhaps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) but I think the more generally accepted paradigm is that there’s an “out there” world, albeit one that we cannot with a high level of confidence be sure we perceive accurately.

Well, now that I have read NS's post about perception, I am not sure if what we perceive and the particular way we perceive and our differences in perception is just something we are each born with.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

Yes and I similarly support your argument that any concept of gods should not be taught as facts.

Fair enough.

I agree and as many before have said, gods are not truth-apt and therefore based on how we use the word "real" in the English language I do not think we can determine if they are real or imaginary.

“Determine” is too high a bar for the default position of non-belief – “act on the basis that they’re not real” is good enough (burden of proof again).
 

Yes many theists are fine with others dismissing their beliefs - whether that is other theists dismissing their beliefs or atheists dismissing their beliefs. If some beliefs are treated more seriously than others I think it is for cultural reasons and also because that particular belief has wider public appeal or has acquired powerful patronage or a lobby group has been particularly slick in their marketing of that belief compared to other beliefs.

I thought that your position was that advertising doesn’t work (tee hee – just kidding). Yes, all seems reasonable to me. In the absence of any means to demonstrate the claim to be more probably true than not, what else is there but enculturation, personal utility, PR etc?

Ok that's you. But there are others who do understand the concept I am getting at, though they will probably have their own individual slants on it.

I don’t think that’s right. Ask any theist, “what do you mean by “God” exactly?” and try take to make sense of the answer. Most will dodge it and give you his CV instead (“God is the being that did the following…”) or will list the omnis maybe but will never tell you what this god actually is, how he functions etc. When one of them tries the "he's the ground of all being beyond all understanding" or some such greetings card guff frankly I want reach for the sick bag.
Or a gun ; - )   

Yes - I also think the concepts of god can be incoherent.

"Must be" rather than "can be" I think. Just because a sentence makes sense grammatically doesn’t mean its content must make sense too. If someone wants to posit “outside time and a space” or some such they must explain what on earth they mean by it rather than just jump straight to telling us that that’s where their god lives. If they really want to do that cheat though, they have no choice but to accept that I could populate the same place with anything that takes my fancy too. It’s a classic “answer” that actually answers nothing at all.   

Well, now that I have read NS's post about perception, I am not sure if what we perceive and the particular way we perceive and our differences in perception is just something we are each born with.

Maybe, though the commonality of our neural architecture (and similarities across closely related species) suggest that most of us perceive things in approximately the same way at least.

[Alan Burns]

Alan


Without going over all the specific soul/consciousness narrative you keep advancing there are a couple of aspects I wonder if you've considered since, it seems to me, you really are out on a limb here.

If there was something in what you say then; a) there would be at least a recognition among those doing neuroscience that a 'soul-brain' interface was a hypothesis worth investigating, and b) religious organisations such as your own would be supporting neuroscience in the investigation of the possibility of souls interacting with brains.

As far as I'm aware their is nothing happening on either front and, if so, then perhaps you are quite simply wrong and having difficulty accepting that you are effectively ploughing a lone furrow.

When I first speculated on the soul being the source of human free will, I did feel for many years that I was out on a limb, though I did not actively seek confirmation or denial to any great extent.

I then came across a full chapter on the subject in CS Lewis' book "Miracles" in which he went into much detail to reach a conclusion that a consciously invoked choice was a miraculous event because there could be no feasible material explanation.

Now with the use of Google it is an easy matter to search for "souls and free will" to discover that there are many people who have reached the same conclusions as myself.

And on the relationship with neurological matters, you can google "quantum indeterminacy and free will" to discover arguments for and against the possibility of indeterminate quantum events being the window for conscious freedom to interact within the otherwise physically predetermined material brain.

Having said all this, I must say that the vast majority of people I meet consider their freedom to consciously choose as being a fundamental reality with no need to investigate how it works.

[Nearly Sane]

When I first speculated on the soul being the source of human free will, I did feel for many years that I was out on a limb, though I did not actively seek confirmation or denial to any great extent.

I then came across a full chapter on the subject in CS Lewis' book "Miracles" in which he went into much detail to reach a conclusion that a consciously invoked choice was a miraculous event because there could be no feasible material explanation.

Now with the use of Google it is an easy matter to search for "souls and free will" to discover that there are many people who have reached the same conclusions as myself.

And on the relationship with neurological matters, you can google "quantum indeterminacy and free will" to discover arguments for and against the possibility of indeterminate quantum events being the window for conscious freedom to interact within the otherwise physically predetermined material brain.

Having said all this, I must say that the vast majority of people I meet consider their freedom to consciously choose as being a fundamental reality with no need to investigate how it works.

Google flat earth and there are pages. Your post has no worth
 

[Gordon]

When I first speculated on the soul being the source of human free will, I did feel for many years that I was out on a limb, though I did not actively seek confirmation or denial to any great extent.

I then came across a full chapter on the subject in CS Lewis' book "Miracles" in which he went into much detail to reach a conclusion that a consciously invoked choice was a miraculous event because there could be no feasible material explanation.

Now with the use of Google it is an easy matter to search for "souls and free will" to discover that there are many people who have reached the same conclusions as myself.

And on the relationship with neurological matters, you can google "quantum indeterminacy and free will" to discover arguments for and against the possibility of indeterminate quantum events being the window for conscious freedom to interact within the otherwise physically predetermined material brain.

Having said all this, I must say that the vast majority of people I meet consider their freedom to consciously choose as being a fundamental reality with no need to investigate how it works.

We've discussed Lewis and 'Miracles' before, so I think when it comes to neurology and free will we can dismiss him as a Christian apologist. However, since you mention 'quantum indeterminacy and free will', rather than advise that others just google this perhaps you should set out the aspects that you find convincing, with references from appropriately qualified researchers - then we can, having first established the provenance of the sources, consider what is being proposed.

People, myself included, may well feel that on a day-to-day basis they are making free choices: but it just feels that way, since applying a little thought to the issue highlights that that may be a simplistic presumption, and I'm confused that you cite quantum mechanics yet say that people 'consider their freedom to consciously choose as being a fundamental reality with no need to investigate how it works' - so why then do you cite quantum mechanics at all?  Even more confusing is the notion of concluding anything is a 'fundamental reality' and then preferring to avoid investigating how it works - you are, in effect, saying that ignorance is bliss.

As ever, Alan, you seem to be chronically confused.