Searching for GOD...

[Bramble]

I think the word "God" is one label attached to the abstract thought and interpretation of searches for meaning in what we observe and feel and remember, possibly through the use of autobiographical memories. It may be that you are saying you have never experienced the feeling of searching for meaning? In which case, yes we have no common ground for the sensation.

...

It might be - it depends on how easy it is for an individual to dismiss the sensations they feel that they have interpreted into a concept that enriches and adds meaning to their life. If, as has been discussed endlessly on here, individuals cannot choose what they desire and they desire meaning, and their abstract concept of God generates the feelings of meaning that satisfy their desire, then they will be unable to come to the conclusion you suggest.

Hi Gabriella

I hope you don't mind me butting in on your conversation. I just wondered whether you could try to describe your 'feeling of searching for meaning'.

I'm thinking of a line from a poem: 'If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things.' 

Do you think that the search/desire for meaning and the presumed absence of meaning might be one and the same problem?

I'm also curious that an abstract concept (God) might be seen as the solution to an existential emptiness. It would suggest that an absence of feeling could be resolved by a higher cognitive function, which strikes me as rather odd - a bit like trying to satisfy a hungry stomach by doing trigonometry. I guess there would be some degree of displacement but not a lasting satisfaction.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi Bramble

No problem - it's not butting in if it's on a discussion forum.

Speaking for myself, I am not aware that I am consciously searching for meaning - it seems to be something my brain does without my control because events occur in my life and my brain seems to interpret them in a way that generates a sensation - sort of as though it is coming from the pit of my stomach and at the same time in my head there is cognitive process as my head makes sense of the event - I am not sure if the sensation precedes the thoughts or the thoughts precede the sensation but it seems some kind of loop.

What I do know is that if I then cognitively pursue the thought of what I label as "God", rather than ascribing the sensation to indigestion and fanciful unbidden superstition I usually seem to end up with a more positive outcome in terms of personal goals, relationship goals, motivation, composure, a sense of mental and emotional well-being etc

I seem to prefer more positive outcomes to more negative outcomes, hence I continue with the concept of God rather than abandoning it to go back to atheism.

[torridon]

You have answered your own question here by the word "influences".  Our conscious choices are influenced, not determined by the past.  The present state of our conscious awareness allows us to consciously choose what to invoke from all the influences which exist at the time we make the choice.  You have to think beyond the limitations within the mechanistic world of physical chains of cause and effect to appreciate the enormous potential and capability which exist in our present state of human conscious awareness.

I haven't answered the question I put, which is, does Chesterton reveal in his writings how a choice can be free from determinant influences without being random, and if he does so, why haven't you posted it up here on this thread so that others can see.  Just saying we choose 'consciously' says nothing about how that binary contradiction between determined and random is actually resolved.  If all influences are removed from a choice, then the outcome is necessarily random, by definition.  So, try again, how could any agent, 'conscious' or otherwise, resolve choice between rival options apart from by weighing rival influences against each other to discover which is the strongest influence.

[Bramble]

Hi Gabriella

Thanks for that. I'm not sure I quite understand what you write - at least I can't make sense of it in terms of my own experience. Maybe that's why I've never really got God. Life is very fluid, ungraspable, wild. Abstract concepts seem the exact opposite - domesticated, controlled, fixed. Perhaps that's their appeal.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi Gabriella

Thanks for that. I'm not sure I quite understand what you write - at least I can't make sense of it in terms of my own experience. Maybe that's why I've never really got God. Life is very fluid, ungraspable, wild. Abstract concepts seem the exact opposite - domesticated, controlled, fixed. Perhaps that's their appeal.

Yeah - I was pretty wild. I need a mental strait-jacket and religion is pretty useful in that respect.

[Alan Burns]

So, try again, how could any agent, 'conscious' or otherwise, resolve choice between rival options apart from by weighing rival influences against each other to discover which is the strongest influence.

It all depends on what you mean by the word "agent".  To me, the agent is you.  You are the conscious choice maker acting within the conscious awareness which comprises "you".

You are certainly capable of considering rival influences within your conscious awareness, but what drives this conscious thought process?  And after considering the influences you are still left with the choice of how, when and where to act upon those influences.  It all occurs in your conscious awareness. 

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus is asked by the followers of John the Baptist to let John know if He is the messiah. (John was in prison at the time).  Jesus replies by saying: Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor; As often in the Gospels, Jesus does not directly proclaim His divinity when questioned about it.  He witnesses by His deeds and leaves the questioner to make up their mind.  It is an invitation to believe, not a forceful command.  We are all invited to believe in our Saviour, and we can use our God given freedom to accept or reject or ignore this invitation.  The choice is open to everyone.  The choice is yours to make.

[Gordon]

It all depends on what you mean by the word "agent".  To me, the agent is you.  You are the conscious choice maker acting within the conscious awareness which comprises "you".

Or put more simply: 'you' and your sense of agency are a function of your biology.

You are certainly capable of considering rival influences within your conscious awareness, but what drives this conscious thought process?  And after considering the influences you are still left with the choice of how, when and where to act upon those influences.  It all occurs in your conscious awareness.

 

Hooray for brains!

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus is asked by the followers of John the Baptist to let John know if He is the messiah. (John was in prison at the time).  Jesus replies by saying: Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor; As often in the Gospels, Jesus does not directly proclaim His divinity when questioned about it.  He witnesses by His deeds and leaves the questioner to make up their mind.  It is an invitation to believe, not a forceful command.  We are all invited to believe in our Saviour, and we can use our God given freedom to accept or reject or ignore this invitation.  The choice is open to everyone.  The choice is yours to make.

So, and before accepting the invitation, can you reassure me that there are no risks of mistakes or lies in the above? I'm sure you appreciate the risks of bias and/or propaganda from Jesus supporters, but I'm sure you've made some attempts to mitigate these risks (CCTV clearly isn't an option). 

[Stranger]

So, try again, how could any agent, 'conscious' or otherwise, resolve choice between rival options apart from by weighing rival influences against each other to discover which is the strongest influence.

It all depends on what you mean by the word "agent".  To me, the agent is you.  You are the conscious choice maker acting within the conscious awareness which comprises "you".

Well, it obviously doesn't all happen in consciousness but this is basically irrelevant waffle.

You are certainly capable of considering rival influences within your conscious awareness, but what drives this conscious thought process?  And after considering the influences you are still left with the choice of how, when and where to act upon those influences.  It all occurs in your conscious awareness. 

This is just another pointless repetition. You have answered neither torridon's question nor your own. Just saying it "occurs in conscious awareness" is telling us what, not how.

This has been pointed out to you countless before and, as usual, you've just ignored the answers. Conscious awareness has nothing to do with the basic logic because if all the possible influences on a choice (conscious or unconscious, internal or external) do not fully resolve it, then some ingredient of the resolution of that choice must be unconnected to any influence - which means it's random.

In today's Gospel reading...

If you want people to listen to your preaching, perhaps you should start actually trying to engage with the arguments, stop ignoring people's considered and reasoned arguments, and stop endlessly repeating "points" that have been addressed countless times before.

Oh, and if you try saying that the very existence of "considered and reasoned arguments" supports your view, that is yet another point that has been addressed countless times already, so ignoring the answers and repeating it would be stupid of you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

Sorry it’s taken a while. Briefly though.

In so much as that I have an attachment to the concept of God that I have created in my mind, yes. As I have said before gods cannot be described as objective fact because the methodology to prove objective facts does not apply to the concept of gods…

Or because there are no such things of course, but ok…

… so I think we are in agreement that defining the argument in terms of a God that is objective fact is not relevant in your discussion with me. AB might assert gods and free will as objective fact but given he has failed to come up with any of the evidence required to support a claim of objective fact, his assertions have been dismissed by many posters, but of course he is free to continue with his evangelical posts.

My point was that the word "love"  is just a label attached to subjective sensations, many of which are interpreted by individuals in a way that often leads to illogical, highly dysfunctional, often self-destructive behaviour e.g. the over-indulgence of children, which could be considered as a form of emotional abuse. So it may be that the only common ground would be that "love" is a feeling of attachment.

I think the word "God" is one label attached to the abstract thought and interpretation of searches for meaning in what we observe and feel and remember, possibly through the use of autobiographical memories. It may be that you are saying you have never experienced the feeling of searching for meaning? In which case, yes we have no common ground for the sensation.

Well perhaps, but I still think there’s a category difference between “love”, “search for meaning” etc and “god”. The former category describes experiences, and moreover there’s enough common ground for we two to discuss the concepts meaningfully. Try that with the description of a (supposedly) objective fact “god” though and I have no idea at all what you mean it.     

Yes but I am less concerned with the lies and more interested in the sensations they feel - the Brexit campaign seemed to have tapped into these feelings that people were unable to articulate in any kind of logical way, and this may be one of the reasons why we now have Boris Johnson in power - it seems he gave some voice to those feelings, if you believe the interviews with traditional Labour voters who voted Conservative.

The ”sensations they feel” are well and good I suppose, but I’d be more interested in the concrete than the abstract – what will the feelings of Brexit voters be when the car factory they work at closes, when their child can’t access mental health services, when class sizes grow and educational attainment dips etc? 

Which does not make sense in a world where we operate using the concept of time on the assumption that everything has a beginning.

Not sure who “we” is but there are various conjectures that time’s arrow may not be straight, and may not have “begun” at all (what would be a time before time be in which whatever started it did its thing?).

It might be - it depends on how easy it is for an individual to dismiss the sensations they feel that they have interpreted into a concept that enriches and adds meaning to their life. If, as has been discussed endlessly on here, individuals cannot choose what they desire and they desire meaning, and their abstract concept of God generates the feelings of meaning that satisfy their desire, then they will be unable to come to the conclusion you suggest.

Jonathan Edwards?

I know that (many) people have huge emotional attachments to their beliefs in various gods that would be intensely painful to give up (look at the knots AB ties himself in to avoid at all costs honest engagement with the arguments that falsify him), but conceptually at least I don't see why they’d be unable to do it. You don’t have to “dismiss the sensations you feel” at all, but rather you do need to grasp that the arguments to justify the cause of those feelings are false.

Easy for me to say I know, but people can (and do) do it.

[Outrider]

It all depends on what you mean by the word "agent".  To me, the agent is you.  You are the conscious choice maker acting within the conscious awareness which comprises "you".

As a collective, whatever the individual components might be - brain only, brain and some spiritual component, spirit acting on a brain? OK, working on that understanding at least for the moment.

You are certainly capable of considering rival influences within your conscious awareness, but what drives this conscious thought process?

That's what consciousness is - it's not 'driven', it simply is that consideration.

And after considering the influences you are still left with the choice of how, when and where to act upon those influences.

Yes.

It all occurs in your conscious awareness.

No. Take, for instance, claims of God.  Various people say 'God is' or 'I believe God is', and various others say 'God isn't' or 'your claim of a god is insufficient'. I hear all those various claims, and the supporting arguments, and I can rationally consider them.  What I can't do, though, is choose which of them I believe is right - belief doesn't come from a conscious consideration, but it's a manifestation of consciousness.

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus is asked by the followers of John the Baptist to let John know if He is the messiah. (John was in prison at the time).  Jesus replies by saying: Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor; As often in the Gospels, Jesus does not directly proclaim His divinity when questioned about it.  He witnesses by His deeds and leaves the questioner to make up their mind.  It is an invitation to believe, not a forceful command.  We are all invited to believe in our Saviour, and we can use our God given freedom to accept or reject or ignore this invitation.  The choice is open to everyone.  The choice is yours to make.

So let's for a moment assume that Jesus really could do magic, and those things really happened - where is our demonstration of magic?  I read about magic in Lord of the Rings, in Harry Potter, in any number of other works from Dragonlance, through Shannarah to Riftworlds (just looking at one of my bookshelves) - why should this particularly unremarkable story be considered special?

O.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi BHS

Hi Gabriella,

Sorry it’s taken a while. Briefly though.

Or because there are no such things of course, but ok…

Well perhaps, but I still think there’s a category difference between “love”, “search for meaning” etc and “god”. The former category describes experiences, and moreover there’s enough common ground for we two to discuss the concepts meaningfully. Try that with the description of a (supposedly) objective fact “god” though and I have no idea at all what you mean it.     

The ”sensations they feel” are well and good I suppose, but I’d be more interested in the concrete than the abstract – what will the feelings of Brexit voters be when the car factory they work at closes, when their child can’t access mental health services, when class sizes grow and educational attainment dips etc?

British stiff upper lip? No idea - we will have to wait and see what rabbits Johnson conjures up.

Jonathan Edwards?

I know that (many) people have huge emotional attachments to their beliefs in various gods that would be intensely painful to give up (look at the knots AB ties himself in to avoid at all costs honest engagement with the arguments that falsify him), but conceptually at least I don't see why they’d be unable to do it. You don’t have to “dismiss the sensations you feel” at all, but rather you do need to grasp that the arguments to justify the cause of those feelings are false.

Easy for me to say I know, but people can (and do) do it.

I Googled Jonathan Edwards but did not really enlighten me on the reason you mentioned him.

Conceptually it's easy to see that the arguments for the cause of the feelings cannot be shown/ demonstrated to be true. This doesn't stop a person being a theist.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

British stiff upper lip? No idea - we will have to wait and see what rabbits Johnson conjures up.

Maybe, but the point rather was experiential descriptions of feelings and claims of objective facts about “things that are really out there” are different categories of claim.   

I Googled Jonathan Edwards but did not really enlighten me on the reason you mentioned him.

British champion triple jumper who was a devout Christian and who famously realised that his reasons to justify his beliefs were wrong, so abandoned his faith. I was just giving you an example of it happening as you seemed to imply that it couldn’t. 

Conceptually it's easy to see that the arguments for the cause of the feelings cannot be shown/ demonstrated to be true. This doesn't stop a person being a theist.

It’s stronger than “cannot be shown/demonstrated to be true”; rather it’s, “can be shown/demonstrated to be false”, and the “conceptually” is redundant – it’s just “the arguments can be shown/demonstrated to be false”.

Take at look at AB’s attempts to reason his way to his faith beliefs for example. They’re consistently wrong arguments, formal and informal fallacies all. Rather than face up to the problem and do a Jonathan Edwards though, he tries another fallacy (poisoning the well) by calling the logic he fails at “short-sighted” as if there was some magic process that enables conclusions he happens to like (“god”, “soul” etc) somehow to reach back to wrong arguments used to justify them to make them into a correct arguments.

[Nearly Sane]

British champion triple jumper who was a devout Christian and who famously realised that his reasons to justify his beliefs were wrong, so abandoned his faith. I was just giving you an example of it happening as you seemed to imply that it couldn’t. 

It looks to me that Gabriella makes no claim that a believer cannot change to a non believer, or that that might not be influenced by argument, but rather if beliefs cannot be chosen then there is no qualitative difference in how they are arrived at.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

It looks to me that Gabriella makes no claim that a believer cannot change to a non believer, or that that might not be influenced by argument, but rather if beliefs cannot be chosen then there is no qualitative difference in how they are arrived at.

It doesn't to me. Here's what she said (Reply #38033):

It might be - it depends on how easy it is for an individual to dismiss the sensations they feel that they have interpreted into a concept that enriches and adds meaning to their life. If, as has been discussed endlessly on here, individuals cannot choose what they desire and they desire meaning, and their abstract concept of God generates the feelings of meaning that satisfy their desire, then they will be unable to come to the conclusion you suggest.

Speaking for myself if I thought something was true and someone said “actually that’s not true, and here’s why” and I couldn’t rebut their case then I’d change my mind. Someone else though might not. The qualitative difference is an emotional response vs a reasoned one I’d have thought.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

It doesn't to me. Here's what she said (Reply #38033):

Speaking for myself if I thought something was true and someone said “actually that’s not true, and here’s why” and I couldn’t rebut their case then I’d change my mind. Someone else though might not. The qualitative difference is an emotional response vs a reasoned one I’d have thought.

That just illustrates your misunderstanding as it is saying you think you chose your beliefs. It's the same mistake that AB makes about free will and is just as logically incoherent.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi BHS

Hi Gabriella,

Maybe, but the point rather was experiential descriptions of feelings and claims of objective facts about “things that are really out there” are different categories of claim.

Yes I agree - different categories - but based on what some Labour campaigners who spoke to voters on the doorstep and some political commentators are saying about why traditional Labour voters voted Tory it appears that for many people, their interpretations of their feelings and desires are more important to their world view than claims of objective fact.

ETA: And "out there" in terms of gods is a meaningless phrase if "there" is unable to be demonstrated.

British champion triple jumper who was a devout Christian and who famously realised that his reasons to justify his beliefs were wrong, so abandoned his faith. I was just giving you an example of it happening as you seemed to imply that it couldn’t.

I agree that people could abandon their faith if they realise that the reasons to justify their beliefs were wrong. But it depends on what their reasons for faith are. My reasons to justify my faith might seem wrong to someone else but they are nevertheless my reasons.

It’s stronger than “cannot be shown/demonstrated to be true”; rather it’s, “can be shown/demonstrated to be false”, and the “conceptually” is redundant – it’s just “the arguments can be shown/demonstrated to be false”.

Take at look at AB’s attempts to reason his way to his faith beliefs for example. They’re consistently wrong arguments, formal and informal fallacies all. Rather than face up to the problem and do a Jonathan Edwards though, he tries another fallacy (poisoning the well) by calling the logic he fails at “short-sighted” as if there was some magic process that enables conclusions he happens to like (“god”, “soul” etc) somehow to reach back to wrong arguments used to justify them to make them into a correct arguments.

Yes I agree that trying to solely use argument to convince someone else to have faith they do not currently have a desire for does not work. Hence, AB's arguments have been dismissed by other posters.

Individuals convince themselves based on their individual brain's subjective interpretations of their conscious and sub-conscious experiences, desires and beliefs - and these interpretations are usually determined by prior events unless it is random. Since you cannot choose your desires doing a Jonathan Edwards would presumably require AB to have a stronger sub-conscious desire to abandon his faith rather than remain a theist and for his conscious brain to become aware of these competing desires and the desire that won - which in AB's case is the desire to remain a Catholic?

2nd ETA: I Googled Jonathan Edwards and he seems to have indicated his decision has an emotional component as he said "I am happy and actually it's fine. I don't miss my faith. In many ways I feel more settled and happier in myself without it. I don't know if that is related to losing my faith or would have been the case anyway, but it's a non-issue as far as I am concerned. Seven years on I don't feel a gap in my life and I suppose that's the proof of the pudding isn't it? Had I suddenly thought that life doesn't quite feel right, maybe I'd re-examine that – re-examine my faith. In fact, more than ever, I feel comfortable with where I am in life."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/jonathan-edwards-ive-taken-leap-3190574

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

NS,

It doesn't to me. Here's what she said (Reply #38033):

Speaking for myself if I thought something was true and someone said “actually that’s not true, and here’s why” and I couldn’t rebut their case then I’d change my mind. Someone else though might not. The qualitative difference is an emotional response vs a reasoned one I’d have thought.

Outrider seemed to think all thoughts have an emotional component and that's how it seems to me to, so I do not think there is the clear delineation you suggest of emotional vs reasoned.

[Alan Burns]

That just illustrates your misunderstanding as it is saying you think you chose your beliefs. It's the same mistake that AB makes about free will and is just as logically incoherent.

I agree that you cannot choose what to believe.
But you can choose to enact the thought processes that lead up to a belief.
We all have freedom to choose what (or what not) to think about. 
Some people may choose to look at the concept of emergent properties of material reactions.
Some people may choose to think about how consequences of events are determined by previous events.
Some people may choose to think about drawing false conclusions from logical fallacies.
Some people may choose not to think about the possibility that they have consciously driven freedom to think such things.

[Roses]

Some people put their trust in an entity, which more than likely doesn't exist.

[Nearly Sane]

I agree that you cannot choose what to believe.
But you can choose to enact the thought processes that lead up to a belief.
We all have freedom to choose what (or what not) to think about. 
Some people may choose to look at the concept of emergent properties of material reactions.
Some people may choose to think about how consequences of events are determined by previous events.
Some people may choose to think about drawing false conclusions from logical fallacies.
Some people may choose not to think about the possibility that they have consciously driven freedom to think such things.

That's a belief about what you should think about - in order to do that with your model you would then have to have a belief to have a belief... You've just created an infinite regress

[Gordon]

Some people may choose not to think about the possibility that they have consciously driven freedom to think such things.

You still haven't got the hang of the burden of proof being your responsibility: it is your claim, so it is your responsibility to present a case that can be engaged with and if you can't do that, and it seems you can't, then it isn't the case of others not thinking about what you claim - it is the case though that others simply dismiss this specific claim of yours as being illogical and incoherent for all the reasons frequently given before that you either ignored or are unable to even process.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I agree that you cannot choose what to believe.
But you can choose to enact the thought processes that lead up to a belief.
We all have freedom to choose what (or what not) to think about. 
Some people may choose to look at the concept of emergent properties of material reactions.
Some people may choose to think about how consequences of events are determined by previous events.
Some people may choose to think about drawing false conclusions from logical fallacies.
Some people may choose not to think about the possibility that they have consciously driven freedom to think such things.

The obvious response, which has been made many times on here, is that there are endless possible explanations for all kinds of things we observe. The trick is to decide which of those endless possibilities to pick - you have not offered anyone any evidence why your possibility is the one to pick, though you have made claims and explained why you picked your possibility.

It is also a possibility that we feel like we have freedom but in our sub-conscious it is already  decided what we think about.

It is also a possibility that our conscious brain picks from the possibilities supplied by the sub-conscious brain by thinking through potential outcomes, probabilities, risks - though it does not do this based just on hard stats but also based on emotion.

It is also a possibility that some people's brains just make decisions based on whether the argument is logically coherent rather than based on any emotional response to perceptions, risks etc

And if we pick an explanation just based on how we feel a decision happens in our brains - I feel like I cannot think of something to think about, without first encountering it and it becoming part of my brain experience so my brain can access the information and bring it forward as a thought. So thinking of anything is dependent on something that preceded it.

Out of interest - have you chosen not to think about the possibility that you do not have consciously driven freedom to think such things?
   

[Stranger]

We all have freedom to choose what (or what not) to think about. 
Some people may choose to look at the concept of emergent properties of material reactions.
Some people may choose to think about how consequences of events are determined by previous events.
Some people may choose to think about drawing false conclusions from logical fallacies.

And some people, like yourself, may choose to refuse to engage with logical reasoning at all and totally ignore the obvious problems in their own blind faith beliefs.

Some people may choose not to think about the possibility that they have consciously driven freedom to think such things.

The evidence is that those arguing with you have thought a great deal more about it than you have.

[Alan Burns]

And some people, like yourself, may choose to refuse to engage with logical reasoning at all and totally ignore the obvious problems in their own blind faith beliefs.

The evidence is that those arguing with you have thought a great deal more about it than you have.

But you still have not addressed the fact that we have the consciously driven freedom to choose what to think about, what not to think about and how much depth to think about things.  Going back to Sassy's opening post, it is abundantly obvious from this thread that our choices in such thought processes are selective in that we choose to think about topics which support what we want to believe.  Truly objective thought processes would be inclusive of supernatural possibilities rather than dismissive of them.

[Gordon]

But you still have not addressed the fact that we have the consciously driven freedom to choose what to think about, what not to think about and how much depth to think about things.

Nobody is saying that you don't feel free to think: however, that is just what it feels like but since your thinking isn't quite as free of influences, information and personal traits it isn't as 'free' as you imagine it to be, unless of course you think only random thoughts.
 

Going back to Sassy's opening post, it is abundantly obvious from this thread that our choices in such thought processes are selective in that we choose to think about topics which support what we want to believe.

So, can you make yourself want to believe that Glasgow is a suburb of Warsaw?
 

Truly objective thought processes would be inclusive of supernatural possibilities rather than dismissive of them.

Did you really mean to say something as stupid as that?