Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

I do not dispute the fact that life evolved incrementally over a long period of time.
There is nothing in the observable facts that can define the cause of the beneficial mutations involved in the evolution of life.  Nor is there any definable cause for the events which brought the first living cells into existence.

My contention with evolution is concerned with the improbability of unguided, purposeless forces being able to produce all the complexity needed for life as we know it to exist.  We can observe the creative power of human will acting within this material universe, so I see reason to consider the creative power of God's will acting as a guiding force within the evolutionary process.  I see overwhelming evidence for the reality and power of conscious intention acting within this material universe to bring about both God's and Mankind's creations.

Ah, so, something hard to understand, therefore God.  Just as I predicted. What is wrong with making the effort to understand ? After all it seems this incredulity seems only to affect people of a religious persuasion, why is that now, is it just a coincidence ? Or is there some bias at work ?

[Walter]

Blue,
Sorry to interrupt but I can hear the sobs of frustration in your voice .
I think the time has come for some Anglo Saxon language and an ultimatum 👽

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Walter,

Sorry to interrupt but I can hear the sobs of frustration in your voice .
I think the time has come for some Anglo Saxon language and an ultimatum 👽

Do you know, I think you might be right! The mistake (ie, my mistake) is to think that AB will behave with the same reasonableness and honesty that others display to him, but he just can’t or won’t do that. No matter how comprehensively or robustly his arguments are dismantled before his eyes, he just ignores the problem and repeats the same mistakes endlessly. Even he must grasp that he’ll never convert anyone here with abject nonsense, so why does he continue with it? Some sort of pleasure from trolling I guess, but it beats me.

[SusanDoris]

Hi Walter,

Do you know, I think you might be right! The mistake (ie, my mistake) is to think that AB will behave with the same reasonableness and honesty that others display to him, but he just can’t or won’t do that. No matter how comprehensively or robustly his arguments are dismantled before his eyes, he just ignores the problem and repeats the same mistakes endlessly. Even he must grasp that he’ll never convert anyone here with abject nonsense, so why does he continue with it? Some sort of pleasure from trolling I guess, but it beats me.

I am of the strong opinionn, as I'm fairly sure I mentioned way back in the dim and distant past, that it is smugness and conceit … … plus of course the many other things you and others have called his profoundly indoctrinated views.
It has, though, as I have also said here and there been most interesting to read the rational, sensible responses - and I know a lot more about fallacies etc now than I did earlier.

[Walter]

Hi Susan and Blue
The main problem with Alan's arguments is this ;
He believes he is right because he's using the " I've got all the secret answers and god is on my side phalacy "
All he has to do then is lie for Jesus

Dispicable !

[Stranger]

Do you know, I think you might be right! The mistake (ie, my mistake) is to think that AB will behave with the same reasonableness and honesty that others display to him, but he just can’t or won’t do that. No matter how comprehensively or robustly his arguments are dismantled before his eyes, he just ignores the problem and repeats the same mistakes endlessly. Even he must grasp that he’ll never convert anyone here with abject nonsense, so why does he continue with it? Some sort of pleasure from trolling I guess, but it beats me.

It's bizarre, is it not? I pointed out before that in this respect he reminds me of literal six day 6000 years ago creationists. It's the pig-headed refusal to even learn the basics of the subject matter. He claims to be using logic but has clearly never bothered to learn anything about critical thinking, and he's talking about "free will" but is so unfamiliar with what has been said about it that he doesn't even understand what "deterministic" means.

Not bothering to do his homework at the start could simply be some combination of laziness, arrogance, or complacency, but totally ignoring being corrected on the subjects is the same sort of thing I've seen in creationists. It's like they literally can't see anything that doesn't fit with their dogmas.

At least creationists have the "excuse" that their churches often demand that they believe what they do, but Alan seems to have the same sort of blind faith, not in the doctrines of his church, or even in the notion of "free will" itself, but in his own "argument". It's like he has to believe that he's constructed this amazing undeniable argument for his god.

[Alan Burns]

I see the predictable flurry of highly motivated responses whenever I dare to question anything relating to the Theory of Evolution.  Responses which confirm the capability of our human minds to think up reasons to justify our beliefs.

Can such capability be put down to material reactions alone?

[Stranger]

I see the predictable flurry of highly motivated responses whenever I dare to question anything relating to the Theory of Evolution.

I'd be willing to bet that they weren't nearly as predicable as you have proved to be (#39489).

Responses which confirm the capability of our human minds to think up reasons to justify our beliefs.

A capability nobody has ever denied.

Can such capability be put down to material reactions alone?

Why not? You're the one who claimed to have a "logical analysis" and "sound logic" that supports your nonsensical view of how human "freedom" works.

Isn't it about time you produced it or finally had the basic human honesty to admit that you have no such thing?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I see the predictable flurry of highly motivated responses whenever I dare to question anything relating to the Theory of Evolution.

You can “dare to question” anything you like. Science positively thrives on challenges to the prevailing orthodoxies (unlike religion incidentally, which tends to label people who do that "heretics" and then to attack them). What you can’t do though is to make fundamentally wrong arguments, have their wrongness explained to you, just ignore the explanations and then repeat exactly the same mistakes over and over again. That only makes you look stupid or dishonest, or both.

To take just one example, I explained to you the reference point error and the circular reasoning you’d fallen into. Why have you just ignored that as if you hadn’t been corrected on it?

Responses which confirm the capability of our human minds to think up reasons to justify our beliefs.

Yes, but not in the way you think for reasons that have been explained endlessly and that you continue to ignore.

Can such capability be put down to material reactions alone?

Yes. Why couldn't it be?

[torridon]

I see the predictable flurry of highly motivated responses whenever I dare to question anything relating to the Theory of Evolution.  Responses which confirm the capability of our human minds to think up reasons to justify our beliefs.

Can such capability be put down to material reactions alone?

I don't know about 'material reactions' alone, but more generally cause and effect, clearly yes. Cause leads to effect, actions lead to reactions, assertions lead to demands for justification, this thread alone is testimony to the truth of this.  Any degree in which responses to posts were not due to 'material reactions' would be the degree to which they were random, and your observation of 'highly motivated' responses surely indicates that any randomness is insignificant.

[Outrider]

I do not see religion as a separate jigsaw, but as an essential component of the picture of the life we know exists.  I see no incompatibility with the concept of spiritually guided interaction acting within our material universe to facilitate the reality we all perceive.

But we have a complete jigsaw without the religion.  The 'Spiritual' doesn't interact with the physical in any detectable way, which suggests that in this analogy if it exists at all it's part of a separate jigsaw.

O.

[Alan Burns]

If you believe that, then why are you always wittering on about 'limited scientific knowledge' and how it is impossible that things like contemplation and deliberation can emerge from a deterministic system ?  Or how the human genome can be accounted for through 'beneficial mutations'.  I think you need to apply your advice to your own thinking, and not be so quick to resort to it is impossible, therefore supernatural.

My contention concerns the limitations of what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements.  These limitations do lead to a deduction that the freedom we all perceive would be impossible.  So we are left with two alternatives.  Either our perception of reality is a delusion, or there is something involved in reality which goes beyond what can be achieved through material reactions alone.

[Stranger]

My contention concerns the limitations of what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements.

How do you know what these limitations are? Are you claiming to know everything about the material universe? Are you claiming omniscience? Are you claiming to be god?

These limitations do lead to a deduction that the freedom we all perceive would be impossible.

Deduction? You haven't posted anything that even looks remotely like a deduction. What are your premises? Where are the logical steps?

So we are left with two alternatives.  Either our perception of reality is a delusion, or there is something involved in reality which goes beyond what can be achieved through material reactions alone.

Firstly, I don't perceive anything like your nonsensical version of "freedom". Sure, if you don't give it a moment's thought and don't do anything like an honest bit of introspection, you might jump to that conclusion but if you give it any thought at all, you realise that it's utterly nonsensical.

Secondly, even if it wasn't nonsensical, you couldn't conclude that it wasn't a physical phenomenon without claiming to know everything about the material universe. You are still confusing logical impossibility with the limitations of the physical world.

However, since you have total, blind, creationist-like faith in your own "argument", I guess you'll just go on ignoring anything that doesn't conform to your reasoning-free dogmas.

WHERE IS THE LOGIC YOU SAID YOU HAD?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My contention concerns the limitations of what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements.

Except you have no idea of “the limitations of what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements”. None whatsoever. You may as well have been a Norseman asserting that thunder is beyond “what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements”, therefore Thor.

These limitations…

What limitations? You haven’t demonstrated any yet, just asserted them.

…do lead to a deduction that the freedom we all perceive would be impossible.

That’s not a deduction at all. Rather it’s just an assertion built on ignorance of reason and facts.

So we are left with two alternatives.  Either our perception of reality is a delusion…

If by “our perception” you mean something like, “I will just assume the sensation of agency means that my consciousness must be free of deterministic causes”, and if by “delusion” you means something like, “an experiential description that fails as an explanation because it’s logically impossible, thus relies on the epistemically worthless answer “magic””, then yes.

….or there is something involved in reality which goes beyond what can be achieved through material reactions alone.

There’s no good reason to think so, no.

Oh, and as you’ve ducked it yet again: do you now understand why “the chances of me occurring are very remote, therefore god” is a false argument because it relies on a premise (ie, a purposive god that intended you all along) for its conclusion (ie, “god”)?

See, here’s the thing: if rather than stick your fingers in your ears each time your efforts are falsified you’d try to understand the mistake you’d made, that way you’d have no excuse for repeating the same mistake over and over again. Isn’t that what an honest person would want?

[torridon]

My contention concerns the limitations of what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements.  These limitations do lead to a deduction that the freedom we all perceive would be impossible.  So we are left with two alternatives.  Either our perception of reality is a delusion, or there is something involved in reality which goes beyond what can be achieved through material reactions alone.

Firstly, these limitations of what can be achieved by 'physical reactions' of 'material elements' are just arbitrary road blocks in your mind.  They aren't real.  Don't blame us for your failure of imagination, don't blame nature for your unwillingness to investigate.  It's not as if nobody has given you any pointers towards more coherent, logical and honest ways of thinking. 

Secondly, for sure, there are illusory aspects to human perception, that is beyond question, this is to be expected. Perception in humans, and also in all other animals, is a complex process that is mostly subconscious.  Given that we would not expect perception to map simplistically to reality, there is no justification for calling in some or other woo to explain our lived experience.

[ippy]

My contention concerns the limitations of what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements.  These limitations do lead to a deduction that the freedom we all perceive would be impossible.  So we are left with two alternatives.  Either our perception of reality is a delusion, or there is something involved in reality which goes beyond what can be achieved through material reactions alone.

We never get to know your point of view Alan, when you write here all we see are the words of those that indoctrinated you.

Commiserations to you Alan you need them, ippy.

[Outrider]

My contention concerns the limitations of what can be achieved by physical reactions of material elements.  These limitations do lead to a deduction that the freedom we all perceive would be impossible.  So we are left with two alternatives.  Either our perception of reality is a delusion, or there is something involved in reality which goes beyond what can be achieved through material reactions alone.

And as a formulation that's fine, but you don't stop at that.  You assert that what we see is somehow impossible from 'purely physical' reactions, without justifying that assertion, and you claim that therefore justifies the claim of something else, in the absence of any actual evidence for something else.

You either need to demonstrate why reality goes beyond the purely physical, as you phrase it, or you need to supply some evidence of this 'non-physical' element actually having an effect on reality, otherwise we're no further along than the realisation that it must be one or the other.

O.

[Sassy]

Hi Susan and Blue
The main problem with Alan's arguments is this ;
He believes he is right because he's using the " I've got all the secret answers and god is on my side phalacy "
All he has to do then is lie for Jesus

Dispicable !

Where did Jesus ever tell a lie? How could Alan lie for Jesus. Till you can prove what you say instead of suggesting it might be best you remain silent.

[Outrider]

Where did Jesus ever tell a lie? How could Alan lie for Jesus. Till you can prove what you say instead of suggesting it might be best you remain silent.

I'm not aware that anyone was accusing Jesus of lying - we have so little verifiable information about whomever Jesus might or might not have been that to make specific accusations of what was or wasn't said is unjustifiable.

As to the allegation that Alan is lying: he's been repeatedly shown what people (justifiably) have shown are significant logical flaws in his arguments, and yet he continues to hold them; he's made claims to a logical foundation for his argument, but has repeatedly failed to produce it.  The argument, therefore, is that by knowingly continuing to make the same discredited points, he is lying.

To my mind, he isn't lying, he's not convinced despite the solid arguments arrayed against him, because his logical arguments are an ad hoc position to a prior, emotional attachment to a religious belief system.  He believes he's right - he might be (indeed I believe he is) mistaken, but I can see why people make the accusation.

O.

[ekim]

Something for Alan..... https://tinyurl.com/sxeb44y

[Roses]

Where did Jesus ever tell a lie? How could Alan lie for Jesus. Till you can prove what you say instead of suggesting it might be best you remain silent.

We have no idea what the real Jesus was actually like, the gospel accounts lack credibility.

[Alan Burns]

I came across these words on the voice for justice web site, and thought them very appropriate for this thread:

In this time of enforced isolation, which could easily have one climbing the walls with frustration and loneliness, perhaps there is also opportunity to draw closer to God, free from distraction. 
 
There is real opportunity here to close one’s eyes to the traumas of the world, and focus instead on Christ, seeking to know him better.  To hear his voice.  And as one does that, the realities of existence, of which we are so often unaware, come more sharply into focus.  To win God is to win all.
 
So there is blessing here.  In this time of self-isolation there is a real chance to get to know God and ourselves much better.  To discover strengths and gifts we perhaps didn’t know we had – to try out ‘projects’ that we’ve always wondered about, but for which up to now we haven’t had the time.
 
We are in the eye of a storm at the moment and there can be a real temptation to despair – to shout, ‘I can’t cope.  I can’t bear this separation from loved ones.’  And especially is this true for those witnessing from afar the agonies of a loved fighting for their lives on a ventilator – knowing they can’t be with in their precious last moments.   In that situation, hard as it seems, we really do have to trust God.  But the underlying truth in all of this is that this current crisis will pass.  There is hope.  There will be light.
 
In suffering we are called to endure.  Hard as it may seem, that is where the gold is tempered and refined.   So let us encourage one another and endure, confident that at the last the Lord will bring forth something infinitely precious – in our own lives, and for humanity as a whole.
 
Be encouraged, and be strong - in trust that at the last we will see the glory of the Lord.

In these challenging times, may the Lord bless and
 keep safe you and all those you love,

So instead of searching for reasons not to believe, why not try opening your minds to contemplate the reality of your own spiritual nature.  Try reading psalm 139 or John's gospel and allow the profound meaning of the words to sink in.  There is nothing to fear, and you may well discover something infinitely precious - the gift of faith.

[Walter]

Alan

you have successfully made me ANGRY !

[wigginhall]

The gold is tempered and refined!   Not that old chestnut -  so the virus is purifying us.   Good to know.

[Stranger]

I came across these words on the voice for justice web site, and thought them very appropriate for this thread:

Your god, Alan, would be an evil, cruel monster if this were true.

So instead of searching for reasons not to believe...

FFS, how many more times? Nobody needs a reason not to believe, what is needed is the first hint of any reason at all to take any of your absurd, contradictory nonsense seriously.