Author Topic: Searching for GOD...  (Read 3879406 times)

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43100 on: November 28, 2021, 09:12:55 PM »
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?

Because we know that is wrong, and not just wrong, it is irrational.  Just as in, the Earth seems flat, but hey, we know that is wrong, from multiple lines of evidence and reason. Logic trumps intuition.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43101 on: November 29, 2021, 09:26:09 AM »
AB,

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.   

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?     

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?   
In all this you still fail to give a rational explanation for how any form of rational explanation can be generated by unguided sub conscious brain activity before we become consciously aware of it.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43102 on: November 29, 2021, 09:46:33 AM »
I wonder how the deterministic consciousness handles novelty since each moment is as, they say, new.

The same way it handles everything else, by comparing it to previous experience looking for parallels and similarities, and trying previously effective techniques and methods for understanding/interacting depending on the nature of the novel experience.

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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 reason? To an extent, but I think it's difficult to nail down exactly to what extent - my impression (not based on any scientific papers, you understand, just life experience) is that our subconscious IS our character, it makes the reasoned or empassioned decisions, and then we consciously come up with post hoc rationalisations when we need to for decisions that we've already made. Those conscious decisions and realisations can inform our subconscious tendencies in the future - both when we realise we made the right call and when we have the shame or embarressment of realising that we didn't.

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Does it have the same access to memory or better than the conscious mind.

I don't know about better - different, perhaps? Maybe fewer concrete instances, but a better long-term impression? Maybe?

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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.

I think it probably does most of the filtering - it doesn't arbitrarily exempt anything from the equation, but sometimes fails to exempt things it possible would be better excluding.

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

I'm not sure how your subconscious made that leap, but I'm intrigued as to how your conscious mind would post hoc rationalise it :)

O.
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

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Stranger

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43103 on: November 29, 2021, 10:59:01 AM »
In all this you still fail to give a rational explanation for how any form of rational explanation can be generated by unguided sub conscious brain activity before we become consciously aware of it.

Wow. More breathtaking hypocrisy, shifting the burden of proof, and straw man.
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bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43104 on: November 29, 2021, 11:12:49 AM »
AB,

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In all this you still fail to give a rational explanation for how any form of rational explanation can be generated by unguided sub conscious brain activity before we become consciously aware of it.

There’s so much wrong with this that’s it’s hard to know where to start.

First, you’ve just avoided all the rebuttals that were given to you. Again. Why are you so dishonest?

Second, you’ve been given the rational explanation you claim not to have been given countless times here (that we cannot choose to do other than our wants). Just claiming that it hasn’t been given to you is also dishonest. 

Third, even if there wasn’t a perfectly serviceable (albeit incomplete) explanation to hand all we’d have instead would be a “don’t know”. “Don’t know” is the honest response when we don’t know something, and it provides no authority to drop in whatever notion takes your fancy to fill the knowledge gap. This is epistemology 101 and you really should understand it by now.

Fourth inventing “god” and then when asked anything at all about this supposed god reply with “god only knows” is no explanation of any kind. It’s the end of enquiry, and the settling for incoherence in place of an investigable and justifiable answer. It adds nothing to the story. It’s just white noise. And it remains deeply hypocritical of you to complain that the rational explanation we have doesn’t satisfy you, so you’ll replace it with a claim about which you have precisely zero information of any kind.   

I asked you about this a while back (why you think having no pieces of the jig-saw gives you a more accurate version of the picture than having some of the pieces) but, predictably, you just ran away from that question too. 

You are of course entitled to believe any claim you want to make to be true. Your attempts to justify your belief “god” though remain disastrous.

And dishonest.   
« Last Edit: November 29, 2021, 11:25:14 AM by bluehillside Retd. »
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Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43105 on: November 29, 2021, 11:40:27 AM »
AB,

There’s so much wrong with this that’s it’s hard to know where to start.

First, you’ve just avoided all the rebuttals that were given to you. Again. Why are you so dishonest?

Second, you’ve been given the rational explanation you claim not to have been given countless times here (that we cannot choose to do other than our wants). Just claiming that it hasn’t been given to you is also dishonest. 

Third, even if there wasn’t a perfectly serviceable (albeit incomplete) explanation to hand all we’d have instead would be a “don’t know”. “Don’t know” is the honest response when we don’t know something, and it provides no authority to drop in whatever notion takes your fancy to fill the knowledge gap. This is epistemology 101 and you really should understand it by now.

Fourth inventing “god” and then when asked anything at all about this supposed god reply with “god only knows” is no explanation of any kind. It’s the end of enquiry, and the settling for incoherence in place of an investigable and justifiable answer. It adds nothing to the story. It’s just white noise. And it remains deeply hypocritical of you to complain that the rational explanation we have doesn’t satisfy you, so you’ll replace it with a claim about which you have precisely zero information of any kind.   

I asked you about this a while back (why you think having no pieces of the jig-saw gives you a more accurate version of the picture than having some of the pieces) but, predictably, you just ran away from that question too. 

You are of course entitled to believe any claim you want to make to be true. Your attempts to justify your belief “god” though remain disastrous.

And dishonest.
If God is invented, then it's the most successful invention known to man since it would have had happened long ago. But then it's the sort of thing anyone of us could deduce.(see Dawkins on the inevitability of deducing a cosmic watchmaker, a sentiment completely opposed to your own where only someone completely thick, sick, mad, or evil could come up with it.)

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43106 on: November 29, 2021, 11:48:46 AM »
Vlad,

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If God is invented, then it's the most successful invention known to man since it would have had happened long ago.

It’s “gods” (plural), and they were invented long ago. For as long as there have been people there seem to have been accompanying gods, spooks and ghoulies to explain the phenomena they observed.   

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But then it's the sort of thing anyone of us could deduce.(see Dawkins on the inevitability of deducing a cosmic watchmaker, a sentiment completely opposed to your own where only someone completely thick, sick, mad, or evil could come up with it.)

Why have you just tried such an obvious (and frankly bizarre) lie?
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Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43107 on: November 29, 2021, 03:04:56 PM »
Vlad,

It’s “gods” (plural), and they were invented long ago. For as long as there have been people there seem to have been accompanying gods, spooks and ghoulies to explain the phenomena they observed.
First of all Spooks and ghoulies are not acknowledge for creating/having influence or command of any naturalistic or spiritual sphere so this category error is you catching yourself by the ghoulies. Secondly there is the category difference between gods (plural) and abrahamic and monistic monotheism you have so conveniently left out. Abrahamic or monistic monotheism as merely there to provide explanation for phenomena observed is yet another caricature. This time courtesy of the ''religion as failed science'' group of wankfantasists.
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Why have you just tried such an obvious (and frankly bizarre) lie?
Not at all, you don't know your Dawkins, lost in esteem of your own typings as you are.

Dawkins admits that a cosmic watchmaker might be the first thing that crosses the mind but then derides this as unsophisticated thinking. You are straight on to what possibly possesses people in the first place to even consider that? faux exasperation, Hillside?

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43108 on: November 29, 2021, 04:12:25 PM »
Vlad,

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First of all Spooks and ghoulies are not acknowledge for creating/having influence or command of any naturalistic or spiritual sphere…

Of course they are. Here’s a link to Wiki on creation myths to get you started:

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

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…so this category error is you catching yourself by the ghoulies.

There’s no category error.

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Secondly there is the category difference between gods (plural) and abrahamic and monistic monotheism you have so conveniently left out.

Irrelevant.

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Abrahamic or monistic monotheism as merely there to provide explanation for phenomena observed is yet another caricature.

Straw man. No-one said that thar’s all they’re for, but it’s certainly part of it.

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This time courtesy of the ''religion as failed science'' group of wankfantasists.

And now I see you’ve run out of even the pretence of an argument again.

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Not at all, you don't know your Dawkins, lost in esteem of your own typings as you are.

Your bizarre unrequited bromance with Prof Dawkins is becoming pathological now – and still utterly irrelevant.

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Dawkins admits that a cosmic watchmaker might be the first thing that crosses the mind but then derides this as unsophisticated thinking.

Oh dear. He allows for the possibility (which would only lead to deism at most in any case) but quickly dispenses with the claim of probability, and for sound reasons (namely that the arguments attempted to justify that claim are crap). 

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You are straight on to what possibly possesses people in the first place to even consider that? faux exasperation, Hillside?

As so often when you collapse into incoherence, I have no idea what you’re even trying to say here – and nor it seems have you.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2021, 04:15:17 PM by bluehillside Retd. »
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God

Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43109 on: November 29, 2021, 07:52:13 PM »
Secondly there is the category difference between gods (plural) and abrahamic and monistic monotheism you have so conveniently left out.

Except that 'Abrahamic monotheism' with it's Holy Trinity, Satan, plethora of ranks of angels and, depending on the particulars of the sect, interventionist demigod saints, is in absolutely no meaningful way a 'monotheistic' depiction.

O.
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

New Atheism - because, apparently, there's a use-by date on unanswered questions.

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Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43110 on: November 29, 2021, 08:07:39 PM »
Except that 'Abrahamic monotheism' with it's Holy Trinity, Satan, plethora of ranks of angels and, depending on the particulars of the sect, interventionist demigod saints, is in absolutely no meaningful way a 'monotheistic' depiction.

O.
That's just a caricature view.
Most of the entities you mention are not divine in any abrahamic religion.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43111 on: November 29, 2021, 08:31:16 PM »
The same way it handles everything else, by comparing it to previous experience looking for parallels and similarities, and trying previously effective techniques and methods for understanding/interacting depending on the nature of the novel experience.
This obviously involves the subconscious since you mention an awful lot of thinking here. More I would say than is actually feasible for the conscious mind in real life in real life considering that we are confronted with the novel so much.
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Does it reason? To an extent, but I think it's difficult to nail down exactly to what extent
agreed, but given what you have left it to do in your opening paragraph(i.e. an unfeasible amount of reasoning for a conscious mind)it must be a lot -
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my impression (not based on any scientific papers, you understand, just life experience) is that our subconscious IS our character
I'm not sure that the way the subconscious is presented here it isn't actually our very own inner philosophical zombie
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, it makes the reasoned or empassioned decisions, and then we consciously come up with post hoc rationalisations when we need to for decisions that we've already made. Those conscious decisions and realisations can inform our subconscious tendencies in the future - both when we realise we made the right call and when we have the shame or embarressment of realising that we didn't.

I don't know about better - different, perhaps? Maybe fewer concrete instances, but a better long-term impression? Maybe?

I think it probably does most of the filtering - it doesn't arbitrarily exempt anything from the equation, but sometimes fails to exempt things it possible would be better excluding.

I'm not sure how your subconscious made that leap, but I'm intrigued as to how your conscious mind would post hoc rationalise it :)
I think all sorts of things are buried in the the subconscious but obviously it has the need to inform the conscious mind of things it is suppressing from time to time.
There is the famous scene in My Fair Lady where Professor Higgins realises he is in love with Eliza and how that clashes with his overt conscious belief that he is the archetypal eternal batchelor who wouldn't fall for that sort of thing.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2021, 07:05:36 AM by Walt Zingmatilder »

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43112 on: November 29, 2021, 10:57:00 PM »
In all this you still fail to give a rational explanation for how any form of rational explanation can be generated by unguided sub conscious brain activity before we become consciously aware of it.

AB,

There’s so much wrong with this that’s it’s hard to know where to start.

First, you’ve just avoided all the rebuttals that were given to you. Again. Why are you so dishonest?

Second, you’ve been given the rational explanation you claim not to have been given countless times here (that we cannot choose to do other than our wants). Just claiming that it hasn’t been given to you is also dishonest. 

Third, even if there wasn’t a perfectly serviceable (albeit incomplete) explanation to hand all we’d have instead would be a “don’t know”. “Don’t know” is the honest response when we don’t know something, and it provides no authority to drop in whatever notion takes your fancy to fill the knowledge gap. This is epistemology 101 and you really should understand it by now.

Fourth inventing “god” and then when asked anything at all about this supposed god reply with “god only knows” is no explanation of any kind. It’s the end of enquiry, and the settling for incoherence in place of an investigable and justifiable answer. It adds nothing to the story. It’s just white noise. And it remains deeply hypocritical of you to complain that the rational explanation we have doesn’t satisfy you, so you’ll replace it with a claim about which you have precisely zero information of any kind.   

I asked you about this a while back (why you think having no pieces of the jig-saw gives you a more accurate version of the picture than having some of the pieces) but, predictably, you just ran away from that question too. 

You are of course entitled to believe any claim you want to make to be true. Your attempts to justify your belief “god” though remain disastrous.

And dishonest.
To say "don't know" would appear to be clutching at straws to maintain your irrational belief that such a feat of rational thinking could be performed by subconscious brain activity alone before you become consciously aware of it.

I am not in denial of any of the jigsaw pieces currently discovered by human endeavours.  And I am not in a position to presume to know what is missing.  I put my faith in the revelations given to us by the one who knows the complete picture.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2021, 11:01:28 PM by Alan Burns »
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43113 on: November 30, 2021, 08:21:01 AM »
To say "don't know" would appear to be clutching at straws to maintain your irrational belief that such a feat of rational thinking could be performed by subconscious brain activity alone before you become consciously aware of it.

I am not in denial of any of the jigsaw pieces currently discovered by human endeavours.  And I am not in a position to presume to know what is missing.  I put my faith in the revelations given to us by the one who knows the complete picture.

Wrong, you are in denial about various findings of science.  For instance, that humans could have evolved through natural selection, frequently insisting that there must have been some 'guiding' going on. For instance, the findings from the sciences of the mind, that conscious mind derives from non conscious processes over which we have no control or awareness of.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43114 on: November 30, 2021, 08:30:22 AM »
Wrong, you are in denial about various findings of science.  For instance, that humans could have evolved through natural selection, frequently insisting that there must have been some 'guiding' going on. For instance, the findings from the sciences of the mind, that conscious mind derives from non conscious processes over which we have no control or awareness of.
I do not deny that the evolutionary process took place.
My contention is that to produce the unfathomable complexity of the human mind, you would need intelligent guidance rather than the unguided, purposeless forces of nature.
There is still no scientific method to show how conscious awareness is generated.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Stranger

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43115 on: November 30, 2021, 08:59:17 AM »
To say "don't know" would appear to be clutching at straws to maintain your irrational belief that such a feat of rational thinking could be performed by subconscious brain activity alone before you become consciously aware of it.

I see you've gone back to trying to make this a debate about the role of the concious versus unconscious mind. That simply doesn't matter to the logical impossibility of your idea of free will. What's more, you're actually using another of your favourite tactics of just labelling something "irrational", "flawed", or "short-sighted" without making the slightest attempt to back up those claims with any hint of a coherent argument.

You're utterly transparent in that you'll do anything but actually think about and try address the arguments against you, no matter how dimwitted, dishonest, and hypocritical that makes you look.

I put my faith in the revelations given to us by the one who knows the complete picture.

If you operate on blind faith in 'revelations', then why do you so often pretend to have logical reasoning?
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Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43116 on: November 30, 2021, 11:03:55 AM »

If you operate on blind faith in 'revelations', then why do you so often pretend to have logical reasoning?
My faith is not blind - it is quite the opposite.

I see God in many different ways -
In personal prayer
In communal prayer and communal worship.
In the lives of other people.
In the stories of the saints.
In prayerful interpretation of scripture
In miracles
In the miracle of life itself
In our capacity to love and to be loved
In the miracle of human free will
In profound answers to prayer

I also see the manifestation of evil - particularly in the human capacity to delight in the suffering and misery of others in pursuit of self centred pleasure.

All of which you will choose to dismiss because they cannot fit in with the view that every event must be an unavoidable reaction to previous events.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Stranger

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43117 on: November 30, 2021, 11:17:04 AM »
My faith is not blind - it is quite the opposite.

I see God in many different ways -
In personal prayer
In communal prayer and communal worship.
In the lives of other people.
In the stories of the saints.
In prayerful interpretation of scripture
In miracles
In the miracle of life itself
In our capacity to love and to be loved
In the miracle of human free will
In profound answers to prayer

As I said, blind faith. Not one single shred of actual evidence or sound reasoning.

I also see the manifestation of evil - particularly in the human capacity to delight in the suffering and misery of others in pursuit of self centred pleasure.

Yet you overlook the monstrous acts your myth tells you that your god indulgences in.

All of which you will choose to dismiss because they cannot fit in with the view that every event must be an unavoidable reaction to previous events.

You can't even be honest about what I've said, and once again, you've just run away from daring to think about the arguments against your self-contradictory version of free will.   ::)
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bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43118 on: November 30, 2021, 11:24:58 AM »
AB,

Quote
To say "don't know" would appear to be clutching at straws to maintain your irrational belief that such a feat of rational thinking could be performed by subconscious brain activity alone before you become consciously aware of it.

I am not in denial of any of the jigsaw pieces currently discovered by human endeavours.  And I am not in a position to presume to know what is missing.  I put my faith in the revelations given to us by the one who knows the complete picture.

First I set out in plain terms four mistakes in reasoning you’d made, all of which you’ve just ignored. What do you get from this dishonesty?

Second, just throwing in the adjective “irrational” does not thereby make something irrational. You would know this though if you’d bothered answering the same rebuttal I gave you in my previous reply. If you actually want to demonstrate something to be irrational though rather than just assert it, then you need to try at least to construct an argument to justify that claim without collapsing into one or several fallacies.

Third, yes you do deny the findings of science when you arbitrarily discount them so as to fill the gap with whatever faith claim has the strongest emotional hold on you. If it helps you think of science as a bridge that takes us from ignorance to knowledge. Sometimes the bridge goes all the way, and science calls these bridges “theories” – they could still be wrong, but all the available reasoning and evidence we have suggests that they’re reliable enough to be useable.

Sometimes though exactly the same knowledge and experience will allow us to build a bridgehead on one bank and perhaps part of the span across, but won’t take us all the way across because there’s insufficient data. These bridges are called hypotheses – they’re well-aligned with an established body of knowledge, but not so much that they satisfy the more rigorous criteria needed to be called a theory.

What you do though is to bring in the bulldozers of incredulity, assertion and false reasoning to tear down the second type of bridges – the foundations, the bridgehead, the span so far as it goes – and instead you replace them with faith claims that have no foundations, no cement, no steel, no anything by way of a bridge (“only god knows”, “revelations” etc) and then claim to have got to the other bank called knowledge.

It's lousy thinking, but no matter how many times it’s explained to you perfectly clearly you will never, ever confront the overwhelming problems it gives you.

So, yet again: there are rational explanations and partial explanations for the various phenomena your personal incredulity stops you from accepting as naturalistic. Your choice is either to address these part/explanations with counter arguments if you can, or to continue to hide behind empty assertions, evasions and repeated false reasoning.

You choose.                   
« Last Edit: November 30, 2021, 04:10:11 PM by bluehillside Retd. »
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bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43119 on: November 30, 2021, 11:37:12 AM »
AB,

Quote
My faith is not blind - it is quite the opposite.

I see God in many different ways -
In personal prayer

There’s no evidence for personal prayer working. That’s just blind faith.

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In communal prayer and communal worship.

There’s no evidence for communal prayer working. That’s just blind faith.

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In the lives of other people.

There’s no evidence for the lives of other people demonstrating a god rather than just beliefs about god(s). That’s just blind faith.

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In the stories of the saints.

There’s no evidence that “the stories of the saints” are anything other than just stories. That’s just blind faith.
 
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In prayerful interpretation of scripture

There’s no evidence that “prayerful interpretation of scripture” isn’t just different readings of various stories. That’s just blind faith.

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In miracles

There’s no evidence for miracles. That’s just blind faith.

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In the miracle of life itself

There’s no evidence that “life itself” is a “miracle”. That’s just blind faith.
 
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In our capacity to love and to be loved

There’s no evidence that “our capacity to love and to be loved” isn’t only a naturalistic phenomenon. That’s just blind faith.
 
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In the miracle of human free will

There’s no evidence for “free” will as you assert it to be – indeed that would be logically impossible. That’s just blind faith.

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In profound answers to prayer

There’s no evidence for answered prayers, profound or otherwise. That’s just blind faith.

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I also see the manifestation of evil - particularly in the human capacity to delight in the suffering and misery of others in pursuit of self centred pleasure.

There’s no evidence for “evil” in the religious sense. That’s just blind faith.

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All of which you will choose to dismiss because they cannot fit in with the view that every event must be an unavoidable reaction to previous events.

No, all of which can rightly be dismissed because there’s precisely zero evidence for any of them.

This is desperate stuff AB, really desperate.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2021, 11:48:18 AM by bluehillside Retd. »
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43120 on: November 30, 2021, 04:34:21 PM »
That's just a caricature view.

No, you have a hierarchy of supernatural beings in both instances.

Quote
Most of the entities you mention are not divine in any abrahamic religion.

And has anyone wasted time pretending to categorise the various entities of, say, the Norse pantheon by a degree of divine-ness? The fact that people have spent time 'investigating' (somehow?) exactly which beings are divine and which aren't in the Abrahamic faith doesn't mean the fact people had better things to do than copy that for Zeus doesn't make them different.

O.
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

New Atheism - because, apparently, there's a use-by date on unanswered questions.

Eminent Pedant, Interpreter of Heretical Writings, Unwarranted Harvester of Trite Nomenclature, Church of Debatable Saints

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43121 on: November 30, 2021, 05:21:34 PM »
Vlad,

Quote
Most of the entities you mention are not divine in any abrahamic religion.

That’s debatable, but have it your own way if you want to  – gods, ghoulies and spooks it is then.
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43122 on: November 30, 2021, 06:25:14 PM »
Vlad,

That’s debatable,
It's a shame this isn't that sort of board. Debate? Posseing, loud assertion and turdpolishing yes. Not sure about proper debate.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43123 on: November 30, 2021, 06:29:22 PM »
No, you have a hierarchy of supernatural beings in both instances.

And has anyone wasted time pretending to categorise the various entities of, say, the Norse pantheon by a degree of divine-ness? The fact that people have spent time 'investigating' (somehow?) exactly which beings are divine and which aren't in the Abrahamic faith doesn't mean the fact people had better things to do than copy that for Zeus doesn't make them different.

O.
You are shifting the goalposts from divine to supernatural. Time investigating divinity. I smell intellectual and academic totalitarianism and imperialism. There is only one divinity in abrahamic monotheism...the clue is in the word monotheism.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #43124 on: November 30, 2021, 08:18:56 PM »
AB,

There’s no evidence for personal prayer working. That’s just blind faith.

There’s no evidence for communal prayer working. That’s just blind faith.

There’s no evidence for the lives of other people demonstrating a god rather than just beliefs about god(s). That’s just blind faith.

There’s no evidence that “the stories of the saints” are anything other than just stories. That’s just blind faith.
 
There’s no evidence that “prayerful interpretation of scripture” isn’t just different readings of various stories. That’s just blind faith.

There’s no evidence for miracles. That’s just blind faith.

There’s no evidence that “life itself” is a “miracle”. That’s just blind faith.
 
There’s no evidence that “our capacity to love and to be loved” isn’t only a naturalistic phenomenon. That’s just blind faith.
 
There’s no evidence for “free” will as you assert it to be – indeed that would be logically impossible. That’s just blind faith.

There’s no evidence for answered prayers, profound or otherwise. That’s just blind faith.

There’s no evidence for “evil” in the religious sense. That’s just blind faith.

No, all of which can rightly be dismissed because there’s precisely zero evidence for any of them.

"Head in the sand" comes to mind  ???
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton