Searching for GOD...

[Owlswing]

A mind that did not learn would be a pointless, useless thing.

Which to me accurately describes the minds of most of most devout Christians, including those posting on  these boards. 

They consider that their minds have, via the Bible and the Church, learned absolutely everything that they will ever need to know.

In point of fact, about the real world, they know SFA!

 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Apologies for not replying more fully to your recent post: Reply 40399 in which you explained the basics of logic.

You didn’t reply insufficiently fully – you just ignored the content entirely, and tried a diversionary post instead.

I fully agree with these basics, but I can't agree with the way you attempt to use them in your replies.

Why not? The way I “use them” is to explain various fallacies to you, then to show you how your arguments align with those fallacies. You never though address the problem when it’s been explained to you. 

For instance - I have never claimed that answers to prayer can prove God's existence.

But you have claimed that praying for something that subsequently happens is evidence for “god” – many times. That’s the post hoc ergo propter prop fallacy I explained to you.

I fully agree that valid explanations can be found for many claims to answered prayers.

What does that mean? Are you trying to say that there’s no reason to think that a prayer has been “answered” when the event prayed for happens? If you are, that’s correct.
 

From my own perspective I know that the things I pray about will work out better than the things I neglect to pray about.

How do you know that?

I know it is not conclusive evidence,…

It’s neither conclusive nor evidence – it’s just an unqualified assertion.

…but it is part of the substantial evidence which leads me to belief in God and the power of prayer.

The claim may lead you to “belief in God and the power of prayer” but it’s not evidence of any kind (let alone substantial evidence) for the those claims. No matter how many times you fall victim to the same fallacy, unless you devise some means to demonstrate that a desired event happens more frequently than would have been the case had it not been prayed for, and moreover that the explanation for the supposed phenomenon requires your pick of the gods doing the “answering” then you’re as all at sea with this as you are with all the other logical fallacies you collapse into. 

Just to warn you by the way, whenever people have tried to compare the prayed for/not prayed for outcomes using a standard testing methodology praying has been found to make no meaningful difference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

To understand my position, and why I could never accept your conclusions, :-

If you could “never accept” conclusions no matter what reasoning or evidence could be put to you, why would you post your proselytising in a discussion area rather than a faith sharing area? After all, you’ve just told us that your mind is permanently closed even to the possibility of being wrong.

There is a fundamental difference between our ability to contemplate reality, perceive meaning and purpose, analyse, draw conclusions - and just be an instrument subject to inevitable, unavoidable reactions resulting from the workings of a material brain.

So you assert. What do you think that difference is though as the experience of either would be the same? 

In order to indulge these abilities, we…

need the conscious freedom to manipulate and drive our own thought processes to achieve these specific goals.[/quote]

Who’s “we”? You’ve just assumed your premise again of there being a “we” somehow separate from our physical selves.

… need the conscious freedom to manipulate and drive our own thought processes to achieve these specific goals.

But you know already that this is utter bullshit because the mistake has been explained to you so many rimes. We don’t “drive” our thought processes, we are our thought processes. 

Such freedom is impossible in an environment where every event is entirely dictated by previous events.

Impossible or not is a secondary issue – the primary one though is that there is no such “freedom”. You’ve just made it up.

You deem this freedom to be a logical impossibility, which I would agree with in considering our knowledge of nature,…

It would be impossible if it existed at all yes as it would apparently be neither deterministic nor binary.

…and which is why I consider it substantial evidence for the supernatural power of our human soul.

Which is precisely the same argument as me claiming leprechauns to be supernatural on account of how they’re impossible in nature. Does anything strike you as problematic about that argument?

Incidentally, as you now seem to have found a biblical injunction no longer to be slippery and evasive (1 Peter 3:16-17) how about you actually answer a question I asked you many times and you always avoided?...

... If the experience of “free” will would be the same whether it was actually explained deterministically as the reason and evidence suggests or it happened by unknown magic as you claim, why would you think the latter explanation to be more plausible than the former?   

[Alan Burns]

Just to warn you by the way, whenever people have tried to compare the prayed for/not prayed for outcomes using a standard testing methodology praying has been found to make no meaningful difference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer

From my own experience -
I have lost count of the number of times I have been frantically searching for something, when my wife reminds me saying, "Have you said a prayer yet?", and after saying a prayer, hey presto - I remember where I put it!

I agree - this does not constitute proof of God, or proof of the power of prayer, but it does constitute evidence.

[Gordon]

From my own experience -
I have lost count of the number of times I have been frantically searching for something, when my wife reminds me saying, "Have you said a prayer yet?", and after saying a prayer, hey presto - I remember where I put it!

I agree - this does not constitute proof of God, or proof of the power of prayer, but it does constitute evidence.

Only of your gullibility.

[Nearly Sane]

From my own experience -
I have lost count of the number of times I have been frantically searching for something, when my wife reminds me saying, "Have you said a prayer yet?", and after saying a prayer, hey presto - I remember where I put it!

I agree - this does not constitute proof of God, or proof of the power of prayer, but it does constitute evidence.

It constitutes evidence that if your god exists it's a capricious thug. Happy to find your contact  lens, and happy to let children being prayed for die in pain of leukaemia. You worship and bathe in blood and death.

[Alan Burns]

We cannot really 'manipulate' our thoughts. We cannot alter the fundamental workings of our brain, the thoughts we get are the consequence of a healthy functioning brain. To the extent that we 'drive' our thoughts, this is merely us acting on our desires anyway, so it is no different - we cannot choose our desires, rather we follow them and act upon them.  If you think you can alter your brain function, do tell, do describe, this idea makes no sense to me.

What evidence do you have for this - apart from the presumption that all out thoughts are somehow determined before we think them?
Do you honestly believe that everything you consciously discern relating to our contemplation of reality is just an unavoidable consequence to past events beyond your control?  If so, how can you possibly presume such inevitable thought patterns lead to a valid conclusion?  What is it that leads you to the presumption that you cannot manipulate your own thoughts?  Could you ever reach such a conclusion without the ability to manipulate and drive your own thoughts?

[torridon]

What evidence do you have for this - apart from the presumption that all out thoughts are somehow determined before we think them?
Do you honestly believe that everything you consciously discern relating to our contemplation of reality is just an unavoidable consequence to past events beyond your control?  If so, how can you possibly presume such inevitable thought patterns lead to a valid conclusion?  What is it that leads you to the presumption that you cannot manipulate your own thoughts?  Could you ever reach such a conclusion without the ability to manipulate and drive your own thoughts?

Like I said, give an example of how you can manipulate a thought.  This makes no sense to me. I don't manipulate my thoughts, I have thoughts, but I don't see how I can 'manipulate' them.  Give an example.

[Nearly Sane]

What evidence do you have for this - apart from the presumption that all out thoughts are somehow determined before we think them?
Do you honestly believe that everything you consciously discern relating to our contemplation of reality is just an unavoidable consequence to past events beyond your control?  If so, how can you possibly presume such inevitable thought patterns lead to a valid conclusion?  What is it that leads you to the presumption that you cannot manipulate your own thoughts?  Could you ever reach such a conclusion without the ability to manipulate and drive your own thoughts?

Since the thoughts to drive our thoughts are thoughts, and you would then have to have thoughts to drive them etc etc, yoh have created an infinite regress. So your position is specious.

And this has been pointed out often and you just ignore

[ekim]

From my own experience -
I have lost count of the number of times I have been frantically searching for something, when my wife reminds me saying, "Have you said a prayer yet?", and after saying a prayer, hey presto - I remember where I put it!

I agree - this does not constitute proof of God, or proof of the power of prayer, but it does constitute evidence.

Ah, that was Gad though, not God. 

[Stranger]

What evidence do you have for this - apart from the presumption that all out thoughts are somehow determined before we think them?
Do you honestly believe that everything you consciously discern relating to our contemplation of reality is just an unavoidable consequence to past events beyond your control?  If so, how can you possibly presume such inevitable thought patterns lead to a valid conclusion?  What is it that leads you to the presumption that you cannot manipulate your own thoughts?  Could you ever reach such a conclusion without the ability to manipulate and drive your own thoughts?

The evidence and reasoning has been put to you endless times and you just ignore it. This post of yours contains no logic and no evidence, you're effectively just saying "but why can't you agree with my personal incredulity?" What's more you must have repeated pretty much the same inane drivel dozens of times on this thread and had answers just as many times - all of which you just ignore.

Still waiting for any hint of the logic you said you had or the honesty to admit you can't provide any. How many times do you need to ignore this before I can safely presume that your claim was a barefaced lie?

[Alan Burns]

Like I said, give an example of how you can manipulate a thought.  This makes no sense to me. I don't manipulate my thoughts, I have thoughts, but I don't see how I can 'manipulate' them.  Give an example.

Surely it would be far more difficult to produce an example of thought processes which have not been consciously manipulated.

[Stranger]

From my own experience -
I have lost count of the number of times I have been frantically searching for something, when my wife reminds me saying, "Have you said a prayer yet?", and after saying a prayer, hey presto - I remember where I put it!

Do you stop being "frantic" when you pray?

[Gordon]

Surely it would be far more difficult to produce an example of thought processes which have not been consciously manipulated.

What about dreams?

How do they fit into your schema?

[Stranger]

Surely it would be far more difficult to produce an example of thought processes which have not been consciously manipulated.

No - you're making no sense. How do you "consciously manipulated" the thoughts you are having? By thinking about it? We have trains of thought, one leads to another, but there is nothing about that that suggests your self-contradictory nonsense about being able to have thought differently without it just being random. The thoughts you have are the thoughts you have, you can't choose them without that itself being a thought process and we're off into another infinite regress.

[Nearly Sane]

Surely it would be far more difficult to produce an example of thought processes which have not been consciously manipulated.

Infinite regress.

[torridon]

Surely it would be far more difficult to produce an example of thought processes which have not been consciously manipulated.

Typical Burnside evasion, you see, you never actually engage.  I don't see how I could 'manipulate' a thought, it doesn't make sense. I cannot make a thought go faster, or slower, or choose a route through cortex for it, or schedule its arrival or delay its departure, and if I could do any of these things, I could only do so by other mental processes, ie other thoughts.  It seems to me that you've never stopped to think about how you think.

[Alan Burns]

The evidence and reasoning has been put to you endless times and you just ignore it. This post of yours contains no logic and no evidence, you're effectively just saying "but why can't you agree with my personal incredulity?" What's more you must have repeated pretty much the same inane drivel dozens of times on this thread and had answers just as many times - all of which you just ignore.

Still waiting for any hint of the logic you said you had or the honesty to admit you can't provide any. How many times do you need to ignore this before I can safely presume that your claim was a barefaced lie?

I am aware of your past consciously driven attempts at explaining how inevitable reactions within our brain can come to valid conclusions, but I have yet to be convinced how physically controlled chains of cause and effect reactions alone can somehow be self validating.

[Alan Burns]

What about dreams?

How do they fit into your schema?

Yes - that is a very good example of thought processes which we do not have power to consciously manipulate, as opposed to those we have when we are awake.

thanks, Gordon 

[Nearly Sane]

Yes - that is a very good example of thought processes which we do not have power to consciously manipulate, as opposed to those we have when we are awake.

thanks, Gordon 

Can you deal with the infinite regress problem rather than shooting your feet off with both barrels?

[Nearly Sane]

I am aware of your past consciously driven attempts at explaining how inevitable reactions within our brain can come to valid conclusions, but I have yet to be convinced how physically controlled cause and effect reactions alone can somehow be self validating.

Gibberish

[Gordon]

Yes - that is a very good example of thought processes which we do not have power to consciously manipulate, as opposed to those we have when we are awake.

thanks, Gordon 

My 'God' you are so foolish, Alan: have you ever tried thinking before jumping in feet-first.

[Stranger]

I am aware of your past consciously driven attempts at explaining how inevitable reactions within our brain can come to valid conclusions, but I have yet to be convinced how physically controlled chains of cause and effect reactions alone can somehow be self validating.

I'll ask yet again: what is it about the (self-contradictory) ability to have been able to have done or thought differently with no randomness, that in any way helps with validating anything, or, for that matter, with anything at all humans do?

It's that (nonsensical) 'ability' that is the difference between our views (nothing about the role of consciousness), so why does it make a difference?

[Stranger]

I am aware of your past consciously driven attempts at explaining how inevitable reactions within our brain can come to valid conclusions, but I have yet to be convinced how physically controlled chains of cause and effect reactions alone can somehow be self validating.

And please stop lying about the basis of my argument, which says nothing about "physically controlled chains of cause and effect" or the physical brain.

The impossibility of your assertions about freedom have nothing to do with the physical world.

[Owlswing]

Only of your gullibility.

100% agreed!