Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

The phrase "sidestep chosen in preference to acknowledging sound logic" surely acknowledges my power to choose.  A power derived from the conscious self which comprises "me" as opposed to being an unavoidable consequence to the chains of material reactions dating back to the beginning of time.

This of yours is utter idiocy, Alan.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You really have no idea of how it is to not believe in gods, there's no point trying to enlighten you, when considering the amount of posts you've made and have received on this forum and you still keep on demonstrating, almost daily, that you haven't even begun to grasp the slightest understanding of why some of us choose to not take up any of the religious beliefs?

1. I was in my mid twenties when I became a Christian. So yes I do. I was not therefore indoctrinated.
In fact I rejected Sunday school at an early age. A crocodile would go round the village every Sunday morning collecting the Sunday school. Peer pressure gets no worse than 15 of your school friends outside your door. They gave up in short order.

Sorry to have sunk your indoctrination theory

Did you see Dillahunty in Cambridge in December?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Pidge,

1. I was in my mid twenties when I became a Christian. So yes I do. I was not therefore indoctrinated.
In fact I rejected Sunday school at an early age. A crocodile would go round the village every Sunday morning collecting the Sunday school. Peer pressure gets no worse than 15 of your school friends outside your door. They gave up in short order.

Sorry to have sunk your indoctrination theory

Did you see Dillahunty in Cambridge in December?

That's another non sequitur - you're implying that indoctrination works, but only up to a certain age. Why?

I have no idea whether you were "indoctrinated" by the way, nor even what that would mean if you were. It seems to me just as likely that you made some poor decisions and are now so wedded to them that no amount of falsifying reason will shake them. Who knows though eh?

PS Either way, do watch out for that crocodile though won't you... 

 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Pidge,

That's another non sequitur - you're implying that indoctrination works, but only up to a certain age. Why?

I have no idea whether you were "indoctrinated" by the way, nor even what that would mean if you were. It seems to me just as likely that you made some poor decisions and are now so wedded to them that no amount of falsifying reason will shake them. Who knows though eh?

PS Either way, do watch out for that crocodile though won't you... 

1.There is no falsifying reason
2.There is even less falsifying reason from the “mind” of Essex Man.
3. If someone as erudite as Dillahunty cannot come up with a reason why slavery is bad, what are the chances of a falsifying reason against God eminating from the eastern counties. Tell me Hillside do they still wear flared trousers in Saffron Walden?

[Alan Burns]

Don't be so utterly daft, of course it isn't demonstable. How are you going to demonstrate that you could have done differently, let alone without randomness? What you have demonstrated, yet again, is your total inability to construct anything remotely like a logical argument.

You demonstrate your freedom in every post you consciously choose to write.  If you believe you could not possibly have chosen to compose a different post, or not post at all, you are deluding yourself.  Our conscious freedom is a demonstrable reality, not an illusion.

[torridon]

You demonstrate your freedom in every post you consciously choose to write.  If you believe you could not possibly have chosen to compose a different post, or not post at all, you are deluding yourself.  Our conscious freedom is a demonstrable reality, not an illusion.

Yes we make choices but what is not demonstrable is that we could have chosen differently were we able to rewind time to the exact same circumstances., which is clearly not possible, and even if it were possible and you did choose differently that would demonstrate that your choices are random.  There has to be a reason why we chose the way we did.  If there is no reason for a choice, then it is random.  So, if you don't believe that humans make random choices then you must accept that our choice making is part of the underlying paradigm of cause and effect. I'm afraid there is no way out of this logic.

[Stranger]

You demonstrate your freedom in every post you consciously choose to write.

FFS you're supposed to be a MENSA member, how has your faith have so crippled your mind that you can make such an utterly moronic assertion? I can't possibly write anything that could demonstrate that I could have written something different, in exactly the same circumstances.

It's way beyond stupid.

If you believe you could not possibly have chosen to compose a different post, or not post at all, you are deluding yourself.

If I could have, in exactly the same circumstances, then there could be no possible reason for it (everything is exactly the same), so it would have to be random. This is the logical problem you have made for your self, and your only response has been gibberish nonsense mantras about "the present" and the "will" making its own reasons.

Our conscious freedom is a demonstrable reality, not an illusion.

Demonstrate it then. Do the experiment: make a post, rewind time (literally) to the same point, then make a different post - then think of a way to show that the difference wasn't random.

Oh, but wait, that's impossible, isn't it....   

[torridon]

The phrase "sidestep chosen in preference to acknowledging sound logic" surely acknowledges my power to choose.  A power derived from the conscious self which comprises "me" as opposed to being an unavoidable consequence to the chains of material reactions dating back to the beginning of time.

Yes, you chose, and your choice reflected the state of your 'conscious self' at the point in time of making a choice and we cannot be free of that. Our choices reflect our state of mind, and we cannot choose which state of mind to be in, it doesn't work like that.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Pidge,

1.There is no falsifying reason

Very funny. So all those, what, hundreds?, thousands? of times you’ve crashed into a fallacy and then just ignored or lied about the problem when it was explained to you (see above for et another example re your latest non sequitur) didn’t happen then eh?

Riiiight… 

2.There is even less falsifying reason from the “mind” of Essex Man.

Ah, the fallacy of the ad hom. Your favourite these days (admittedly from the crowded field of fallacies you rely on). Oh well.

3. If someone as erudite as Dillahunty cannot come up with a reason why slavery is bad,…

I have no idea what this person says. If he interests you and given your notoriety for straw men though, if you want to start a thread on it and actually bother to provide some citations knock yourself out. 

…what are the chances of a falsifying reason against God eminating from the eastern counties.

Your inarticulate incomprehensibility is doing you no favours here.

Tell me Hillside do they still wear flared trousers in Saffron Walden?

No longer my stomping ground, but as it happens SF is a very pretty mediaeval market town. Your obsession with god’s own county is becoming almost as weird as your obsession with matters lavatorial. 

Anyway, as you clearly have no interest in contributing to anything I’ll leave you to your private grief.

Again.

[Alan Burns]

Yes, you chose, and your choice reflected the state of your 'conscious self' at the point in time of making a choice and we cannot be free of that. Our choices reflect our state of mind, and we cannot choose which state of mind to be in, it doesn't work like that.

And what comprises your state of mind?
Is it just an inevitable reaction to the past?
Or is it conscious awareness of the past which exists in the present?
But there is something more than just reactions and perception.
Somewhere in your state of mind there is "you".
What defines "you"?
What are "you" capable of doing?
What comprises your thoughts?
What drives your thoughts?
Can you not think for yourself?
Are you not in control?
Are you really just an inevitable reaction?
Believe in yourself, Torri, you are far more than just a biological machine - you are an amazing creation made with purpose and meaning.
You have a destiny - a destiny of your own choice.

[torridon]

And what comprises your state of mind?
Is it just an inevitable reaction to the past?
Or is it conscious awareness of the past which exists in the present?
But there is something more than just reactions and perception.
Somewhere in your state of mind there is "you".
What defines "you"?
What are "you" capable of doing?
What comprises your thoughts?
What drives your thoughts?
Can you not think for yourself?
Are you not in control?
Are you really just an inevitable reaction?
Believe in yourself, Torri, you are far more than just a biological machine - you are an amazing creation made with purpose and meaning.
You have a destiny - a destiny of your own choice.

Sigh; here we go again, all this simplistic homely advice just suggests the last three years of posts on this subject have just gone way over your head.

Somewhere in your state of mind there is "you".  Yes, there is a 'me', a primary constituent of conscious mind.  That 'me' vanishes every time I go to sleep and is re-started when I wake up. Your sense of self is a product of the processes of consciousness. Everything with a brain has some degree of a sense of self. It is not a thing, it is a sense.

Can I think for myself ? Clearly, yes, my thoughts are unique to me.  That partly accounts for how I came to be an atheist, by being determined to think for myself despite an overtly religious upbringing where I was expected to just 'accept' things on faith. However, that does not mean I can 'manipulate' my thought processes at any fundamental level.  I have thoughts, but I cannot control the way they arise and happen in mind. All thoughts originate from lower non-conscious levels of mind and we do not control how our consciousness becomes manifest. We cannot 'control' our thoughts in any sense which implies some sort of separation between 'us' and our thoughts.  We are our thoughts.

Are you not in control? I can control my fingers on this keyboard, I can control my car on the highway.  These are examples of 'control' at the behavioural level. However I cannot control the underlying fundamentals of human experience. I cannot control how strawberries taste or whether I like Camembert more than brie. So, if I have to choose between Camembert and brie, I might be 'free' in that choice in so far as nobody is forcing me to choose one way or the other, but my choosing boils down to identifying what my preference is in the moment and that is not something we can 'control'.  The suggestion that we could choose which preference to prefer would yield a unintelligible scenario in which choice would be impossible or meaningless. On what basis could anyone choose which preference to prefer ? It makes no sense.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

And what comprises your state of mind?
Is it just an inevitable reaction to the past?
Or is it conscious awareness of the past which exists in the present?
But there is something more than just reactions and perception.
Somewhere in your state of mind there is "you".
What defines "you"?
What are "you" capable of doing?
What comprises your thoughts?
What drives your thoughts?
Can you not think for yourself?
Are you not in control?
Are you really just an inevitable reaction?
Believe in yourself, Torri, you are far more than just a biological machine - you are an amazing creation made with purpose and meaning.
You have a destiny - a destiny of your own choice.

While you persist in privileging feelings over reason you'll keep getting this stuff wrong.

Yet again...

...if logic falsifies your explanation then the explanation is wrong.     

[SusanDoris]

AB

why don't you, just for once in this thread, actually listen to what the patient, rational answers to you have been and emerge from the huge cottonwool barrier that you have erected around you, built on and added to over the years to protect you from reality, and actually think about what has been said?
The continuous monologue of completely blinkered, and in my opinion, smug, drivel you post is really painful to observe. The reason I do observe  it - in the answers to you - is that I admire nd value highly the intelligence and thoughtfulness of those replies.

It is also in my opinion very discourteous to ignore what is said to you and repeat endlessly the same monologue.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

While you persist in privileging feelings over reason you'll keep getting this stuff wrong.

Yet again...

...if logic falsifies your explanation then the explanation is wrong.   

If logic falsifies reality, the logic is obviously flawed.

[Stranger]

If logic falsifies reality, the logic is obviously flawed.

Except, in this case, you have yet to produce the slightest hint of a reason as to why there is any conflict between the logic and reality. All you've shown is that you don't like the logical conclusion because it contradictions your simplistic, superficial intuition and blind faith.

CORRECTION: you've also shown that you don't even understand logic or what the word "demonstrable" means, and that you seem to have no problem with dishonestly misrepresenting the opposing views, or making bold claims that you cannot back up and won't withdraw. You also seem to have a bizarre belief that endlessly repeating the same script is going to somehow make it more convincing.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If logic falsifies reality, the logic is obviously flawed.

Which would be fine if you had some means better than logic to discern what reality is. Your problem though is that you haven’t – all you have is, “the experience feels like X, therefore it must be X”.  In other words, there's no good reason to conclude that your reality (which reason quickly falsifies), is also the reality.

Your standard responses to this problem are to ignore it or to collapse into yet more fallacies (typically the argumetum ad consequentiam) but it would be refreshing if, just for once, you had the honesty actually to try to tackle it head on.

[torridon]

If logic falsifies reality, the logic is obviously flawed.

Spoken like a true flat earther.

Not to mention people without number down the ages whose reaction in the face of scientific advance is denial and incredulity.  At every point in the history of ideas, where science has confounded our intuitions about how the world is, it is science that prevails in the end. You are merely fighting an unwinnable battle against the deepening of our understanding.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Long ago and far away you assured us that you had “sound logic” to justify your various beliefs. After countless times of asking for it without success, we can now reasonably conclude that that wasn’t true. What you actually have is just the unshakeable conviction that the way experiences feel to you must be the way they are, occasionally followed by various logical fallacies when pressed to explain why you think that.

That’s fine – we all knew it anyway – but it does leave you left with only reason- and evidence-denying faith claims. And, as you should know by now, the problem with that is that there are innumerable such reason- and evidence-denying faith claims from any number of faith traditions and no means to determine which, if any, should be taken more seriously than any of the others.       

You are of course free to keep making these assertions if you want to, but you should know that you have zero chance of persuading thinking people to agree with you unless, finally, you can produce this sound logic you once assured us that you had.

Sorry, but there it is.     

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Long ago and far away you assured us that you had “sound logic” to justify your various beliefs. After countless times of asking for it without success, we can now reasonably conclude that that wasn’t true. What you actually have is just the unshakeable conviction that the way experiences feel to you must be the way they are, occasionally followed by various logical fallacies when pressed to explain why you think that.

That’s fine – we all knew it anyway – but it does leave you left with only reason- and evidence-denying faith claims. And, as you should know by now, the problem with that is that there are innumerable such reason- and evidence-denying faith claims from any number of faith traditions and no means to determine which, if any, should be taken more seriously than any of the others.       

You are of course free to keep making these assertions if you want to, but you should know that you have zero chance of persuading thinking people to agree with you unless, finally, you can produce this sound logic you once assured us that you had.

Sorry, but there it is.     

How on earth you can come up with such detailed critique of my faith position and my reasons for justifying it and still believe you are entirely driven by nothing but unavoidable physical reactions to past events truly beggars belief.

Which has the stronger case -
My personal incredulity
Or your personal optimism. ?

[Nearly Sane]

How on earth you can come up with such detailed critique of my faith position and my reasons for justifying it and still believe you are entirely driven by nothing but unavoidable physical reactions to past events truly beggars belief.

Idiotic drivel

[Stranger]

How on earth you can come up with such detailed critique of my faith position and my reasons for justifying it and still believe you are entirely driven by nothing but unavoidable physical reactions to past events truly beggars belief.

The epitome of a personal incredulity.

Which has the stronger case -
My personal incredulity
Or your personal optimism. ?

More misrepresentation. It's your personal incredulity and blind faith versus logic and evidence, and there really is no contest.

And once again you've just ignored the basic question of whether you can produce anything remotely like the "sound logic" you said you had or finally admit that you can't.

[Gordon]

How on earth you can come up with such detailed critique of my faith position and my reasons for justifying it and still believe you are entirely driven by nothing but unavoidable physical reactions to past events truly beggars belief.

Because your 'position', such as it is, has been repeatedly exposed as being infantile and illogical (since you clearly don't appreciate logic) nonsense that you express, as you've done again here', using well-worn fallacies.

Which has the stronger case -
My personal incredulity
Or your personal optimism. ?

A silly false dilemma: I'd have thought you should know better by now since here you cite a fallacy (i.e., a reasoning error) as being a credible option, but of course your faith has long since screwed up your critical thinking abilities.

[Alan Burns]

Because your 'position', such as it is, has been repeatedly exposed as being infantile and illogical (since you clearly don't appreciate logic) nonsense that you express, as you've done again here', using well-worn fallacies.

A silly false dilemma: I'd have thought you should know better by now since here you cite a fallacy (i.e., a reasoning error) as being a credible option, but of course your faith has long since screwed up your critical thinking abilities.

My critical thinking leads me to a logical conclusion that the consequences of unavoidable physical reactions alone can never generate reasoned thought processes.  The essential missing ingredient is a means of consciously controlled interaction within the physically determined chains of cause and effect.

[Gordon]

My critical thinking leads me to a logical conclusion that the consequences of unavoidable physical reactions alone can never generate reasoned thought processes.  The essential missing ingredient is a means of consciously controlled interaction within the physically determined chains of cause and effect.

Then your critical thinking is, to use a technical term, fucked.

[torridon]

My critical thinking leads me to a logical conclusion that the consequences of unavoidable physical reactions alone can never generate reasoned thought processes.  The essential missing ingredient is a means of consciously controlled interaction within the physically determined chains of cause and effect.

which sentiment fails to understand that any 'consciously controlled interactions' themselves are a consequence of whatever gives rise to them ie they are part of the flow of cause and effect.  All our thoughts, impulses, urges etc have some origin; that is, unless you believe our thoughts and impulses are random.