Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

The latter portrays a (not “the”) reality that we all perceive, just as keys touching the keyboard portrays a reality we all perceive. Fortunately though we now have the reasoning and tools available to realise that, in both cases, there are more robust explanations for what’s actually happening.

I am concerned with ultimate causes, not the minutia of irrelevant detail.
A consciously driven movement of the finger causes a key to be depressed.
The reality we perceive about the true source of our freedom cannot be rejected on the basis of such a trivial example.

[Stranger]

But the point is that I have the freedom to choose to express my views.  It is not impossible - because I do it.

That kind of "freedom" is something nobody is denying - it's your contradictory assertions about how it works that are impossible.

I am not bearing false witness.  I am witnessing to the truth of our God given freedom.

Every time you identify what people are denying is possible with thinking, making choices, and expressing them - you are lying through your teeth.

[torridon]

But the point is that I have the freedom to choose to express my views.  It is not impossible - because I do it.
I am not bearing false witness.  I am witnessing to the truth of our God given freedom.

OK, so we live in a free country.  Freedom of speech, hooray.

But we all clearly obey the principle of cause and effect, were that not the case, then our behaviours would be random meaningless chaos.

[Stranger]

I can see no fallacy in what I posted.

We've already got copious evidence that you understand nothing about logical reasoning and fallacies...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But the point is that I have the freedom to choose to express my views.  It is not impossible - because I do it.

Wrong again. You feel as though there’s a “you” somehow independent of the physical you that’s “doing it” (apparently “miraculously” or, to put it another way, by magic) because that’s what evolution has given us as a functionally useful, “good enough” but superficial explanation for the phenomenon of choice. If ever you could apply some honesty and some thinking though actually to engage with the arguments for why that’s wrong, you’d grasp that “you” is in fact a self-aware system: complex and integrated, but a system nonetheless.     
 

I am not bearing false witness.

Yes you are. Continually misrepresenting the arguments that undo you (or just ignoring them to repeat the same mistakes over and over again) is bearing false witness.   

I am witnessing to the truth of our God given freedom.

You’re not “witnessing” anything: you’re just repeating mindless theobabble and dishonestly avoiding the explanations for why it’s wrong. In the vanishingly unlikely event that any of the stuff you believe in is by dumb luck true, frankly I’d have a better chance than you of getting into heaven because I don’t rely on dishonesty to argue my position.

[torridon]

I am concerned with ultimate causes, not the minutia of irrelevant detail.
A consciously driven movement of the finger causes a key to be depressed.

And the desire to press the key must itself have origins (i.e. in the 'uncontrollable' past) ; otherwise it would be a random desire. We cannot be free of the principle of determinism without being random. This is what 'free of determinism' means whether you like it or not.

[bluehillside Retd.]

torri,

And the desire to press the key must itself have origins (i.e. in the 'uncontrollable' past) ; otherwise it would be a random desire. We cannot be free of the principle of determinism without being random. This is what 'free of determinism' means whether you like it or not.

Yes quite, but AB’s get out of jail free card is to claim magic (or as he brands it, "miracle"/“miraculous” by which he means the same thing) and then to argue that the rest of us are wrong for assuming that in magicland the basic rules of logic still apply, whereas in fact apparently in magicland he’s free to assert to be true whatever wants to be true.

This gives him several problems though:

1. It’s mindless bollocks. He just can’t grasp that to establish magicland in the first place he needs some logical argument to demonstrate it. He just skips that bit though and asserts it into existence in any case.

2. Having asserted it, anyone else can claim the same for any other bonkers idea that takes their fancy. “Leprechauns? Oh of course they’re real – more fool you for assuming that the rules of logic apply to the wee green fellas….” etc.

3. Having dispensed with logical coherence as a necessary part of his ontology he then makes some very bad attempts to deploy it nonetheless, which is he when he collapses immediately into fallacy. When his fallacies are explained to him though he ignores the problem and starts all over again at Step 1.

It’s bloody weird to see for anyone with a functioning intellect, but for evidence of the damage a religious faith can do to someone who, presumably, once upon a time at least had some critical faculties it’s frankly chilling.

[Alan Burns]

OK, so we live in a free country.  Freedom of speech, hooray.

But we all clearly obey the principle of cause and effect, were that not the case, then our behaviours would be random meaningless chaos.

And the desire to press the key must itself have origins (i.e. in the 'uncontrollable' past) ; otherwise it would be a random desire. We cannot be free of the principle of determinism without being random. This is what 'free of determinism' means whether you like it or not.

As I have said repeatedly, I do not deny the principle of cause and effect.  My contention is about ultimate cause.  Do we have a conscious self which has the willpower to generate causation, or do all causes date back endlessly in time?  No randomness involved.

[Alan Burns]

torri,

Yes quite, but AB’s get out of jail free card is to claim magic (or as he brands it, "miracle"/“miraculous” by which he means the same thing) and then to argue that the rest of us are wrong for assuming that in magicland the basic rules of logic still apply, whereas in fact apparently in magicland he’s free to assert to be true whatever wants to be true.

This gives him several problems though:

1. It’s mindless bollocks. He just can’t grasp that to establish magicland in the first place he needs some logical argument to demonstrate it. He just skips that bit though and asserts it into existence in any case.

2. Having asserted it, anyone else can claim the same for any other bonkers idea that takes their fancy. “Leprechauns? Oh of course they’re real – more fool you for assuming that the rules of logic apply to the wee green fellas….” etc.

3. Having dispensed with logical coherence as a necessary part of his ontology he then makes some very bad attempts to deploy it nonetheless, which is he when he collapses immediately into fallacy. When his fallacies are explained to him though he ignores the problem and starts all over again at Step 1.

It’s bloody weird to see for anyone with a functioning intellect, but for evidence of the damage a religious faith can do to someone who, presumably, once upon a time at least had some critical faculties it’s frankly chilling.

What is chilling is your capacity to deny you own freedom to think, yet display compelling evidence of such freedom by composing such detailed defence of your denial, together with outright rebukes of any evidence I put forward to illustrate the reality of the freedom we all enjoy.

[Alan Burns]

You have given no logical reason whatsoever to take this fantasy of yours seriously.

The highly detailed, well thought out, well reasoned replies to my posts provide ample evidence for the freedom we all use to consciously drive and control our own thought processes.

[torridon]

As I have said repeatedly, I do not deny the principle of cause and effect.  My contention is about ultimate cause.  Do we have a conscious self which has the willpower to generate causation, or do all causes date back endlessly in time?  No randomness involved.

Banal nonsense, I debunked this only three days ago, and here you are parroting it again.  Human will cannot be its own cause, period. Causes lead to effects, there is an arrow of time involved.  The claim that human will is its own cause is circular, if you cannot even grasp that, then your grip on logic is non existent.

[torridon]

But the point is that I have the freedom to choose to express my views.  It is not impossible - because I do it.
I am not bearing false witness.  I am witnessing to the truth of our God given freedom.

You persistently misconceptualise what 'freedom' means. Freedom means absence of coercion or external limitations.  'Free' in the context of decision making merely refers to the boundaries of the possibility-space within which we make choices, thus for example I am free to choose between tea and coffee because they are both on the menu whilst pink gin is not on the menu therefore I am not free to choose pink gin.  This says nothing about how the choice between tea and coffee is resolved. Right now I have the freedom to work anywhere in Europe but after December I will no longer have that freedom, this is not because I am due to lose supernatural powers in January, but because Brexit will have curtailed my options.

[Stranger]

What is chilling is your capacity to deny you own freedom to think, yet display compelling evidence of such freedom by composing such detailed defence of your denial, together with outright rebukes of any evidence I put forward to illustrate the reality of the freedom we all enjoy.

The highly detailed, well thought out, well reasoned replies to my posts provide ample evidence for the freedom we all use to consciously drive and control our own thought processes.

Here we go again...   

Nobody denies the human ability to think things through, make choices, and express those thoughts in any way they want.

What people are denying are your contradictory assertions about how that process works: not fully determined by past chains of cause and effect and no randomness.

You have established no link whatsoever between our abilities (that nobody denies) and your assertions, yet you continue to try to claim those abilities as evidence for your assertions.

We've already established that you don't understand logical deduction, so on what possible basis are you asking people to accept the abilities that nobody denies as evidence for your impossible, contradictory assertions?

[Outrider]

Computer processing is simply an extension of mankind's ability to consciously process and manipulate information to achieve specific goals.  All computer programs have an essential requirement from the consciously driven will of a human programmer.  They are not conscious in their own right, but they all owe their existence and power to the workings of human free will.

Which is all well and good, but doesn't change the fact that they are conducting logical operations whilst beyond devoid of consciousness, showing that consciousness isn't required for logic.

They are a reflection of their creator, as I believe human life is a reflection of God's power and creativity and free will.

Except that they aren't a complete reflection, as they lack a number of human faculties, such as consciousness.  As to whether humanity is a reflection of God's power and creativity, given how readily we can identify significant design flaws in a number of areas, I think we might have moved beyond merely being a reflection of that if we ever were.

O.

[Alan Burns]

Here we go again...   

Nobody denies the human ability to think things through, make choices, and express those thoughts in any way they want.

What is in denial is the role of conscious awareness in these things.  Our ability to consciously think things through must involve interaction from our conscious awareness in order to validate our thought processes.  Without such validation the result of our thought processes can have no personal accountability.  This conflicts with the views consistently put forward on this thread which maintain that our choices are predetermined before we are consciously aware of them.

[Stranger]

What is in denial is the role of conscious awareness in these things.  Our ability to consciously think things through must involve interaction from our conscious awareness in order to validate our thought processes.  Without such validation the result of our thought processes can have no personal accountability.  This conflicts with the views consistently put forward on this thread which maintain that our choices are predetermined before we are consciously aware of them.

You really are getting very confused. This is what happens when you don't pay attention to the people you are talking to because you think you already have all the answers.

The issue of what role consciousness plays in our choice making is a totally separate issue to the logical contradiction inherent in your two assertions about choice-making (not fully determined by past events and no randomness).

I'm completely agnostic about the role of consciousness - there is certainly plentiful evidence that your naive view is false but it simply doesn't matter to the logic of choice-making and to the aforementioned contradiction.

No matter how much you think a choice is driven by consciousness, it still doesn't connect our ability to think about things, and express them in whatever way we like to your two contradictory assertions. You cannot claim the abilities as evidence of your assertions without explaining why you think the one leads to the other - something you have repeatedly failed to do despite endless requests.

[Gordon]

What is in denial is the role of conscious awareness in these things.  Our ability to consciously think things through must involve interaction from our conscious awareness in order to validate our thought processes.  Without such validation the result of our thought processes can have no personal accountability.  This conflicts with the views consistently put forward on this thread which maintain that our choices are predetermined before we are consciously aware of them.

I see you are again using your 'predetermined' lie, Alan, to misrepresent what people say.

Your incredulity and ignorance are an unattractive mix, as well as being a useless basis to underpin any argument.

[Outrider]

What is in denial is the role of conscious awareness in these things.

That's possible, but you haven't demonstrated that, you've only asserted it.

Our ability to consciously think things through must involve interaction from our conscious awareness in order to validate our thought processes.

Interaction between what and what? Our conscious awareness is part of thought - in process terms you might subdivide brain 'functions' and think of them as interacting, but at the physical level all that's apparent are neurons interacting under the conditioning effects of the endocrine system.

Without such validation the result of our thought processes can have no personal accountability.  This conflicts with the views consistently put forward on this thread which maintain that our choices are predetermined before we are consciously aware of them.

I fail to see a) how the realisation that determinism undermines any absolute concept of personal accountability undermines the premise (that's an appeal to consequences), or b) how that conflicts with our choices being made before our consciousness becomes aware of them.

O.

[Alan Burns]

There are many reasons.
A personal relationship exists in prayer.
Many answers to prayer - some truly miraculous.
Many, many personal witness stories about God in other people's lives.
Profound revelations found in scripture.
Discovery of my own spiritual nature.
The miracle of free will, (which many choose to deny).
The miracle of life itself.
The knowledge that none of the above could possibly come into my awareness through deterministic material reactions alone.

I omitted to add the most important reason of all - the single most important life changing, world changing event which has occurred throughout human history- the Resurrection

[Nearly Sane]

I omitted to add the most important reason of all - the single most important life changing, world changing event which has occurred throughout human history- the Resurrection

Shuffle

[Gordon]

I omitted to add the most important reason of all - the single most important life changing, world changing event which has occurred throughout human history- the Resurrection

Don't be silly.

Since you can't exclude the risk that this claim is fictitious it isn't even a confirmed historical 'event': you're overreaching again.

[Outrider]

I omitted to add the most important reason of all - the single most important life changing, world changing event which has occurred throughout human history- the Resurrection

An, at best, contested claim, I hope you'd acknowledge.

O.

[Stranger]

I omitted to add the most important reason of all - the single most important life changing, world changing event which has occurred throughout human history- the Resurrection

So, in addition to all the other nonsense (see #38277), you've now added a religious myth from an old book. If this is an attempt by a god to communicate with its creations, said god has very serious communication problems.

Still, I guess you thought a bit of pointless preaching was easier than actually addressing the gaping holes that have been pointed out in your so called argument...

[Alan Burns]

I fail to see a) how the realisation that determinism undermines any absolute concept of personal accountability undermines the premise (that's an appeal to consequences), or b) how that conflicts with our choices being made before our consciousness becomes aware of them.

O.

I fail to see how such a realisation could possibly materialise without the conscious interaction needed to direct your thoughts to such an abstract concept. No doubt this will be labelled as personal incredulity, but without the ability to exert conscious control of my thoughts before I am aware of them, I cannot be held personally accountable.

[Stranger]

I fail to see how such a realisation could possibly materialise without the conscious interaction needed to direct your thoughts to such an abstract concept.

This is actually rather comical - you are putting forward a view that is inherently self-contradictory, and hence impossible even to imagine, yet you can't "see" something perfectly simple and straightforward.

No doubt this will be labelled as personal incredulity, but without the ability to exert conscious control of my thoughts before I am aware of them, I cannot be held personally accountable.

You can't even get the right fallacy. This (for once) isn't incredulity. The first part doesn't even make sense - how can you exert conscious control over something before you're aware of it? And the second part is an appeal to consequences fallacy.