Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

You seem to be implying that me being a witness to God and to our spiritual nature and our God given freedom is being dishonest

You're not witnessing to anything but your own inability to put forward a logical argument without endless fallacies, engage with the answers you get in a rational way, in fact do anything but mindlessly repeat the same script, over and over again.

Whenever I engage with the arguments, the responses I get infer that I could not possibly have chosen to respond in any other way - I rest my case.

You don't engage with the arguments, you just repeat the same nonsense over and over again. How many times, for example, have you used this blatant evasion tactic?

If it's actually part of your character to be dishonest, then I guess you will carry on being like that. Determinism doesn't mean that you aren't posting exactly what you, Alan Burns, wants to post, and if you want to post dishonest, fallacy ridden nonsense, then that's what you'll go on doing.

You appear to want to imply that your faith requires irrationality and dishonesty.

[Sebastian Toe]

 My view is that the entities of awareness which comprise you and me are not material reactions but an entity which is aware of material reactions.  An entity which can perceive the time dimension of our material universe, but which is not tied to this time dimension in the same way as material reactions. 

This entity causes material reactions though, doesn't it?
Wouldn't that fact alone, tie it to this material universe?

[ekim]

The alternative would stem from the nature of your present state of conscious awareness and your ability to invoke conscious choices rather than just being aware of your inevitable reactions to past events.  How it works - that is God's domain.  I can sympathise with those who do not have faith, for without God's miraculous gift there would be no alternative - you would have no option but to react in exactly the same way under the same circumstances, just like a robot.

The argument is not about 'conscious choice' versus 'unconscious  reactions'.  It is about the extent to which your 'conscious choice' is a free choice.  A choice implies selecting from two or more determinants and so when you make your choice it is unlikely to be free from whichever determinant you choose.  The decision will either be influenced by rationality or desire or maybe a mixture of the two.  There is no absolute conscious free will in the resulting choice.

Jesus could see this when he was in a sorrowful condition shortly before his death when he prayed something like this: 'O God, if it is possible,  let this impending destiny be averted, but only if it conforms to your will.    If the only way for this fateful event to pass by is for me to experience it then let it be so.'  He surrendered his desire based self will to his God's Will.  A non religious person would probably say he left his fate to chance.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You seem to be implying that me being a witness to God and to our spiritual nature and our God given freedom is being dishonest

No, I’m implying (or rather saying plainly) that when you post unqualified faith assertions like “being a witness to God” instead of dealing with the arguments that falsify you you’re being dishonest. It’s epistemically identical to me saying “pots of gold at the end of rainbows, therefore leprechauns” and no matter how many times my reasoning was undone all I ever replied with was, “pots of gold at the end of rainbows, therefore leprechauns”.

You’d think me dishonest if I were to do that wouldn’t you, and rightly so. Does it not trouble you that your entire position here is built on identical dishonesty? 

Whenever I engage with the arguments, the responses I get infer that I could not possibly have chosen to respond in any other way - I rest my case.

Except you never do engage with the arguments in any meaningful or honest sense. What you actually do is ignore them and then repeat exactly the same errors and assertions like a demented speak your weight machine.   

So far as I can tell you actually seem to think the unqualified assertions you make are true, and moreover you’d quite like other people to agree with you about that. Does it not occur to you though that no-one will ever do that unless you finally do qualify them with some arguments that aren’t trivially simple to falsify, and unless too you ditch the dishonesty of never actually engaging with the arguments you’re given?       

[Alan Burns]

This entity causes material reactions though, doesn't it?
Wouldn't that fact alone, tie it to this material universe?

If we were entirely part of this material universe, we would not be capable of causing anything - we would just be a cog within the endless chains of physically defined reactions.

The fact that we are capable of generating a cause rather than just reacting to a previous cause implies that we are not entirely tied to this material universe - we are consciously aware of it and we can consciously interact with it, but our spiritual nature frees us from being entirely governed by it.

[Alan Burns]

The argument is not about 'conscious choice' versus 'unconscious  reactions'.  It is about the extent to which your 'conscious choice' is a free choice.  A choice implies selecting from two or more determinants and so when you make your choice it is unlikely to be free from whichever determinant you choose.  The decision will either be influenced by rationality or desire or maybe a mixture of the two.  There is no absolute conscious free will in the resulting choice.

Jesus could see this when he was in a sorrowful condition shortly before his death when he prayed something like this: 'O God, if it is possible,  let this impending destiny be averted, but only if it conforms to your will.    If the only way for this fateful event to pass by is for me to experience it then let it be so.'  He surrendered his desire based self will to his God's Will.  A non religious person would probably say he left his fate to chance.

Jesus used His free will as a human being to ask His father in heaven to spare him from His impending torture, but He does not demand it.  It is ultimately Jesus who allows His father's will to be done.

[Stranger]

The fact that we are capable of generating a cause rather than just reacting to a previous cause implies...

Argument by assertion fallacy. It's not a fact, it's just your blind faith, and something that is generated without antecedents (or partly without them) would be random (or partly random).

...that we are not entirely tied to this material universe - we are consciously aware of it and we can consciously interact with it, but our spiritual nature frees us from being entirely governed by it.

More mindless repetition, and yet again, the issue of free will has no logical connection to consciousness. This is not an argument between conscious interaction and determinism, they are entirely separate issues.

[torridon]

If we were entirely part of this material universe, we would not be capable of causing anything - we would just be a cog within the endless chains of physically defined reactions.

The fact that we are capable of generating a cause rather than just reacting to a previous cause implies that we are not entirely tied to this material universe - we are consciously aware of it and we can consciously interact with it, but our spiritual nature frees us from being entirely governed by it.

If humans were able to 'generate a cause' in the sense you mean, then it would be random, by definition.  Bad idea, if humans went around generating random causes then we'd have long ago gone extinct.  Fact is, we are still here, since we act because of reasons, because brains evolved to provide that service.  You cannot give one example of how it would benefit anyone to be free of reasons, or what it would even mean to be free of what you want or free of what you believe.  Just as you cannot give an example of a four sided triangle, the claim of free will is inherently irrational, and consequently, unevidenceable.

[ekim]

Jesus used His free will as a human being to ask His father in heaven to spare him from His impending torture, but He does not demand it.  It is ultimately Jesus who allows His father's will to be done.

Then his choice is determined by either his desire to avoid his ' impending torture' or his faith based desire to 'allow his father's will to be done'.  He has the ability to choose but the choice is not free from its determinants.

[Sebastian Toe]

The fact that we are capable of generating a cause .....

Is there a definition of how your immaterial soul, residing outwith the spacetime continuum, is able to cause a physical event within it?

[Outrider]

If we were entirely part of this material universe, we would not be capable of causing anything - we would just be a cog within the endless chains of physically defined reactions.

Each movement of that cog is the effect of a prior cog and the cause of one later - it doesn't stop us being intermediate causes, it means though that we are not 'uncaused causes' at any stage. We have will, but it's not free.

The fact that we are capable of generating a cause rather than just reacting to a previous cause

That's not a fact, that's at best a claim.

implies that we are not entirely tied to this material universe

Even if it were a fact, that's not the only possible conclusion to arrive at from that evidence - we could simply be the occasional source of randomness, not a conduit to something else. If we were a conduit to somewhere else, that would in no way mean that we weren't 'a cog' in an endless line, it would just change the nature of some of the cogs ahead of us in the chain.

we are consciously aware of it and we can consciously interact with it, but our spiritual nature frees us from being entirely governed by it.

Except that we become consciously aware of it after we've already come to the decision, our subconscious leads our conscious not the other way around.

O.

[Alan Burns]

Is there a definition of how your immaterial soul, residing outwith the spacetime continuum, is able to cause a physical event within it?

Only God can know how this is achieved.
We just use this amazing gift to choose our own destiny - as God intended.

[Outrider]

Only God can know how this is achieved.
We just use this amazing gift to choose our own destiny - as God intended.

'I don't know' is an admission of ignorance. 'Only god can know' is trying to raise ignorance to the level of sanctity, which seems such a retrograde step - if nothing else, doesn't the idea that the god you think created you apparently gave you curiosity and the capacity to reason suggest that you shouldn't just give up on trying to understand this stuff?

O.

[torridon]

Only God can know how this is achieved.
We just use this amazing gift to choose our own destiny - as God intended.

which just represents a preference to bottle out of trying to understand things and settle for magic instead.  If everyone thought like that we'd still be believing the Sun moves across the sky by being drawn by teams of angels.

[Sebastian Toe]

Only God can know how this is achieved.
We just use this amazing gift to choose our own destiny - as God intended.

Well in that case, as you are unable to provide a definition, you will not be surprised if I and perhaps others, dismiss your claim........just as you often, very often, have done on this thread
..for example

How can you presume that the "complex structure" arising out of material reactions can define conscious awareness if there is no known definition of conscious awareness?  Unless you can define how conscious awareness manifests in material terms, you can't presume that it emerges from nothing but material reactions.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Only God can know how this is achieved.
We just use this amazing gift to choose our own destiny - as God intended.

Your hypocrisy here is breathtaking. On the one hand you dismiss entirely the science-based partial explanations we have for various phenomena (albeit that you wrongly use the term “definition” rather than “explanation”), and then you blithely assert into existence a god, who you also claim is the only one who knows how he does what he supposedly does. Zero “definition”, zero explanation, zero data of any type. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

So there we have it: some of us think that having some pieces of the jig-saw is a better guide to the final picture than no pieces, whereas you just dismiss the pieces we have because the picture incomplete and then claim to know “the” picture with no pieces of your own at all.

Having always just swum away from the countless lifebelts that have been thrown to you you my old son are well and truly dead in the water now.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Your hypocrisy here is breathtaking. ...

So hypocrisy is being added to the extensive list of personal accusations being aimed to me (along with dishonesty, lies, personal incredulity, deliberately ignoring etc )

How can all these personal accusations be taken seriously when my accusers proffer to believe that every moment of my existence (and theirs) is entirely defined by inevitable reaction to previous moments? 

And in my belief in the power of human free will, am I not more entitled to question if it is my accusers who are deliberately being hypocritical or dishonest in not acknowledging these obvious contradictions in our freedom to act?

[SusanDoris]

So hypocrisy is being added to the extensive list of personal accusations being aimed to me (along with dishonesty, lies, personal incredulity, deliberately ignoring etc )

How can all these personal accusations be taken seriously when my accusers proffer to believe that every moment of my existence (and theirs) is entirely defined by inevitable reaction to previous moments? 

And in my belief in the power of human free will, am I not more entitled to question if it is my accusers who are deliberately being hypocritical or dishonest in not acknowledging these obvious contradictions in our freedom to act?

I stay away ffrom this topic, while dippping in now and again to read posts by the rational thinkers, but I see that you are adding, as it seems to me anyway,cringe-making Uriah Heep type humility to your lack of any sensible argument.

[Stranger]

So hypocrisy is being added to the extensive list of personal accusations being aimed to me (along with dishonesty, lies, personal incredulity, deliberately ignoring etc )

How can all these personal accusations be taken seriously when my accusers proffer to believe that every moment of my existence (and theirs) is entirely defined by inevitable reaction to previous moments? 

There you go again with your obvious evasion tactics. Like all of the rest of your reasoning-free script, this has been answered, over, and over, and over, and over again. It's transparently obvious that when you're in a corner, instead of trying to address the problems, or risk actually thinking about it, you ask this question in some form or another.

What is motivating you to make yourself and your faith look so absurd?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I wonder how the deterministic consciousness handles novelty since each moment is as, they say, new.
I am intrigued by the idea that the subconscious not only detects and initiates response but also does so prior to divulging it to the Conscious mind. Does the subconscious mind reason, make moral decisions and exercise skills? Does it have the same access to memory or better than the conscious mind.

Beyond the millisecond delay from the subconscious sorting everything out to informing the conscious mind I think the subconscious is working on complex knotty problems, fortunately unable to distort or filter and ready to divulge solutions in dreams and moments of contemplation.

Gentlemen I give you the possible arena of your struggle with God.....The subconscious.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So hypocrisy is being added…

Not just hypocrisy, breathtaking hypocrisy. And correctly so, for the reasons I explained that you’ve just ignored.

…to the extensive list of personal accusations being aimed to me (along with dishonesty, lies, personal incredulity, deliberately ignoring etc )

They’re not “personal accusations” – they’re descriptions of your behaviour here. Why don’t you try to address that behaviour rather than just complain that you’re being personally accused of something? 

How can all these personal accusations be taken seriously when my accusers proffer to believe that every moment of my existence (and theirs) is entirely defined by inevitable reaction to previous moments?

Quite readily, for the reasons that have been explained to you approximately ten bajillion times already and that you seem pathologically unable or unwilling to address. 

And in my belief in the power of human free will, am I not more entitled to question if it is my accusers who are deliberately being hypocritical or dishonest in not acknowledging these obvious contradictions in our freedom to act?

No, also for the reasons that have been explained to you approximately ten bajillion times already and that you seem pathologically unable or unwilling to address. 

Look, you’ve had your mistakes explained to you with reasoned arguments countless times now. If you think those reasoned arguments are wrong, you’re entirely welcome to try at least to come up with counter-arguments of your own. If you genuinely think you have them why wouldn’t you try them at least rather than rely on your standard roster of unqualified assertions, evasions and logical fallacies?

Why though? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Gentlemen I give you the possible arena of your struggle with God.....The subconscious.

No, the only “arena of struggle” with your unqualified assertion “god” is your struggle to find an argument to justify it that isn’t shit.

I suggest you start there. (Good luck with it though!)

[Alan Burns]

Look, you’ve had your mistakes explained to you with reasoned arguments countless times now. If you think those reasoned arguments are wrong, you’re entirely welcome to try at least to come up with counter-arguments of your own. If you genuinely think you have them why wouldn’t you try them at least rather than rely on your standard roster of unqualified assertions, evasions and logical fallacies?
 

The so called explanations keep repeating the same short sighted logic which totally fails to give a viable explanation for how we can consciously manipulate our thoughts and make conscious choices to reach verifiable conclusions.  To imply that all this apparent freedom of thought occurs as a fall out from unguided sub conscious brain activity, and that our feeling of freedom is "just the way it seems" is a rather crude attempt to make our human nature fit in with mankind's somewhat limited knowledge of reality.  Why not try accepting that our conscious freedom is "just the way it is" and see where that leads you?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The so called explanations keep repeating the same short sighted logic…

Introducing pejoratives like “so called” (sic), and “short sighted” (sic) is what people with no arguments do. Just calling arguments so-called and short-sighted does not thereby make them so.

Worse yet, we now know that what you actually mean by them is something like “that don’t just accept at face value my unqualified faith assertions”. If you want to contribute to a discussion mb though you need to do much, much better than that – starting with some actual arguments of your own.   

…which totally fails to give a viable explanation for how we can consciously manipulate our thoughts and make conscious choices to reach verifiable conclusions.

Why have you just regurgitated exactly the same idiocy you’ve had detonated so many times before? “We” don’t “consciously manipulate our thoughts” in the way you imply because there’s no “we” somehow floating free of all physical and logical constraints to do the job. “We” are an integrated whole that experiences “free” will but that cannot actually have your version of it because it's inherently contradictory.

Will the penny ever drop for you about this, or are you so compromised by superstitious fairy tales that you’ll never allow yourself the basic honesty to confront the problems your fantasies give you?     

To imply that all this apparent freedom of thought occurs as a fall out from unguided sub conscious brain activity, and that our feeling of freedom is "just the way it seems" is a rather crude attempt to make our human nature fit in with mankind's somewhat limited knowledge of reality.  Why not try accepting that our conscious freedom is "just the way it is" and see where that leads you?

The irony of that “rather crude” from someone who relies on iron-age myths for his version of reality will be lost on you, but nonetheless “our conscious freedom” as you put it cannot lead anywhere because it dies on its arse as soon as you apply rational thought to that assertion. Your problem though is that you will not or cannot apply rational thought to it because you’re terrified of the consequences if ever you did – you backed a very bad idea 50-odd years ago and you cannot bear to think that you’ve invested in the wrong horse ever since. I feel sorry for you, but nonetheless the utter dishonesty it leads you to so as to defend the tottering edifice you’ve built on sand is deeply unedifying.     

Painful or not, do you not think that you might actually feel more comfortable about yourself if you finally stopped relying on your dishonesty?   

[Stranger]

The so called explanations keep repeating the same short sighted logic...

Back to the same mindless, inane script.    You keep asserting that the logic is "short sighted" but you have never once, in all your time here, been able to point to a single problem with it.

...which totally fails to give a viable explanation...

Another mindlessly repeated, baseless assertion that you've never once managed to justify.

...for how we can consciously manipulate our thoughts and make conscious choices to reach verifiable conclusions.

More mindless repetition. Consciousness is simply irrelevant to the logic.

Why not try accepting that our conscious freedom is "just the way it is" and see where that leads you?

You first. "Conscious freedom" is a nothing but a trite mantra of yours. Yes, we can think about things and do as we wish ('freedom'), and consciousness probably is involved somehow, but none of that changes the logic of determinism. Your idea of "just the way it is" is self-contradictory and hence unimaginable. I literally can't even begin to imagine what it would be like, it certainly has nothing to do with my experience of doing things because I want to.

And yet again, I have to ask, why are you wasting your own, and everybody else's time, just mindlessly repeating the same inane script you've posted what seems like about a hundred million times before, instead of spending the same time learning how to do logical arguments? What are you afraid of? If you had any self-confidence in your conclusion, what could you possibly have to lose?