Author Topic: Searching for GOD...  (Read 3876791 times)

Gordon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48775 on: October 26, 2023, 09:55:50 PM »
Congrats Grandpa Blue,  :D

Absolutely - you'll love being a Grandad Blue: congratulations (p.s. start saving now  ;D)

Dicky Underpants

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48776 on: October 27, 2023, 04:44:23 PM »
Hi Dicky,

Well perhaps, but there are clues that the idea already has a foothold at least in some areas of public life. Some universities for example practice “positive action” to redress barriers to entry due to life circumstances – a set of B grades at “A” level from a sink comprehensive in a deprived neighbourhood can indicate better academic aptitude than A grades from the public school system, and so that’s reflected in the entry criteria. It seems to me that the same basic principle could also apply in mirror image – for ““A” level grades” read “crimes committed” and then consider the reverse incidence of disadvantaged young people vs public school educated people in that set. Why in other words would the factors that influence choices and opportunities about studying for exams not also apply to committing crime – and thus be taken into account by the courts as well as by universities?

Children who witness domestic abuse, drug taking, street crime etc can suffer PTSD as strongly as that experienced by war veterans (Sapolsky says), and moreover consequently they’re much more likely to be represented in the stats for teen pregnancies, drug and alcohol addiction, prison populations etc. Should the judicial system treat all people as making equally unfettered choices about undertaking crime, or should there be something in the judicial system akin to positive action in the academic system that recognises that not all people start from the same place? As I understanding it a war vet before a US court would have his PTSD taken into account as a mitigating factor, so why not a kid from the Projects also with PTSD?

Some of the Scandinavian penal systems have already gone some way along this path too – they treat convicts as people to be remediated and rehabilitated rather than to be punished, and have lower recidivism rates than ours as the result. 
   


Congrats Grandad blue, and long may you continue in healthy vigour to enjoy the company of your grandchild.
I'm still pondering your comments. Maybe I've become a bit more pessimistic than you, because some of your comments, or at least the regimes you cite (e.g. Scandanavia) strike me as a bit polyanna- ish. The first thought that comes to mind is that all these schemes for the most part may be preferable to the Michael Howard formula "Prison works" (that's going back a decade or two). However, there is still a significant proportion of perceived criminals who are either so damaged by their environment or their genes that no rehabilitation is possible, and from whom society as a whole needs to be protected. I see such instances akin to the well-known phenomenon of 'imprinting' on young animals - the most harmless examples of which are that they can never see themselves as other than related to humans and can never function in the wild again as the species of creature they actually are. In a more distressing scenario, I remember a friend's (rescue) dog, which had obviously been so brutalised in its infancy that it could never function without going into attack mode when out of doors near people - walks had to be taken in very lonely places. It never really grew out of this behaviour until it was so old, arthritic and nearly blind that it hardly noticed what was going on around it.
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bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48777 on: October 28, 2023, 11:06:21 AM »
Hi Gordon,

Quote
Absolutely - you'll love being a Grandad Blue: congratulations (p.s. start saving now)

Thank you – I’m saving already!

"Don't make me come down there."

God

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48778 on: October 28, 2023, 11:08:17 AM »
Hi Dicky,

Quote
Congrats Grandad blue, and long may you continue in healthy vigour to enjoy the company of your grandchild.

Thank you – I’m sure we’ll be doting like mad things, comfortingly secure in the knowledge that we can hand her/him back when we’ve had enough!

Quote
I'm still pondering your comments. Maybe I've become a bit more pessimistic than you, because some of your comments, or at least the regimes you cite (e.g. Scandanavia) strike me as a bit polyanna- ish. The first thought that comes to mind is that all these schemes for the most part may be preferable to the Michael Howard formula "Prison works" (that's going back a decade or two). However, there is still a significant proportion of perceived criminals who are either so damaged by their environment or their genes that no rehabilitation is possible, and from whom society as a whole needs to be protected. I see such instances akin to the well-known phenomenon of 'imprinting' on young animals - the most harmless examples of which are that they can never see themselves as other than related to humans and can never function in the wild again as the species of creature they actually are. In a more distressing scenario, I remember a friend's (rescue) dog, which had obviously been so brutalised in its infancy that it could never function without going into attack mode when out of doors near people - walks had to be taken in very lonely places. It never really grew out of this behaviour until it was so old, arthritic and nearly blind that it hardly noticed what was going on around it.

Possibly I was unclear, but I’m no bleeding heart snowflake here. Absolutely if someone represents a danger to society then I have no hesitation in them being kept from society for as long as that remains the case – even if it’s for life.

That’s not to say though childhood experiences especially don’t have a significant effect on the capacity for moral decision-making by the adult, and yet the criminal justice system makes little allowance for people diagnosably experiencing PTSD because of those experiences. I don’t have ready answers for how to change that, but it seems inequitable to me at a basic level. 

Sapolsky’s idea is that, eventually, we’ll end up with a criminal justice system better adapted to the deterministic model of “free” will than, effectively, AB’s ghost in the machine model in which we (or, presumably, our “souls”) can all make unfettered choices about what’s right and wrong.   

 
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48779 on: October 28, 2023, 10:48:20 PM »
'Freedom' means freedom from some sort of oppression or coercion.  So if you live in a liberal democracy you may say you are free to worship as you wish; but if you live in an authoritarian theocracy, then you do not have the freedom to worship as you wish.  These would be reasonable and meaningful statements to make.  Your use of 'freedom' says nothing meaningful or useful, as in all the examples you quote, we are doing exactly what we want, and there is nothing to be free from.  You might as well claim that God gave dogs the wonderful freedom to bark or snakes the freedom to slither.
You still do not seem to differentiate from biologically driven instinctive behaviour and the freedom we have as human beings to consciously drive our own thought processes which are needed to participate in any meaningful discussion on this forum.

Our gift of freedom is derived from within our own conscious self - not from the presence or absence of external constraints.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2023, 10:55:51 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

Sebastian Toe

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48780 on: October 29, 2023, 12:35:01 AM »
You still do not seem to differentiate from biologically driven instinctive behaviour and the freedom we have as human beings to consciously drive our own thought processes which are needed to participate in any meaningful discussion on this forum.

Our gift of freedom is derived from within our own conscious self - not from the presence or absence of external constraints.
Once again, thank you for providing the evidence to show that your biological brain works just fine without the need to claim "soul' combined with magic .
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends.'
Albert Einstein

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48781 on: October 29, 2023, 08:37:13 AM »
You still do not seem to differentiate from biologically driven instinctive behaviour and the freedom we have as human beings to consciously drive our own thought processes which are needed to participate in any meaningful discussion on this forum.

Our gift of freedom is derived from within our own conscious self - not from the presence or absence of external constraints.

To be 'free' means to be be free of something, something that would otherwise constrain your choices.  This is what the word means.  You could argue that humans are 'free' from instinctive behaviours, and in this sense we use the word figuratlveiy. A squirrel has more 'freedom' to move around than a potato plant. A human has more 'freedom' to choose how to live than a squirrel. 

But what we are really talking about here is cognitive sophistication.  We have a much larger possibility space to make choices within.  Calling this greater sophistication a 'gift', again, is just to put a spin on it. In reality, this is about encephalisation, a key feature of human evolution, the increase in relative brain size and complexity occuring most markedly in the lineage leading to homo sapiens.

It also misses the mark to identify the 'conscious self' as the true origin of our agency and decision making.  In reality, the conscious self is an ongoing perception of self, generated, like all perception, by deeper processes of mind   It is not so much that the conscious self makes choices, but more that it is a mental construction for the attribution of the choices we make.  'I' did this, 'I' did that ....

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48782 on: October 29, 2023, 02:38:52 PM »
To be 'free' means to be be free of something, something that would otherwise constrain your choices.  This is what the word means.  You could argue that humans are 'free' from instinctive behaviours, and in this sense we use the word figuratlveiy. A squirrel has more 'freedom' to move around than a potato plant. A human has more 'freedom' to choose how to live than a squirrel. 

But what we are really talking about here is cognitive sophistication.  We have a much larger possibility space to make choices within.  Calling this greater sophistication a 'gift', again, is just to put a spin on it. In reality, this is about encephalisation, a key feature of human evolution, the increase in relative brain size and complexity occuring most markedly in the lineage leading to homo sapiens.

It also misses the mark to identify the 'conscious self' as the true origin of our agency and decision making.  In reality, the conscious self is an ongoing perception of self, generated, like all perception, by deeper processes of mind   It is not so much that the conscious self makes choices, but more that it is a mental construction for the attribution of the choices we make.  'I' did this, 'I' did that ....
So you seem to be implying that my unavoidable physically controlled reactions are somehow disagreeing with your unavoidable physically controlled reactions.  It is truly bizarre what the laws of physics can get up to  ???

You need to get to grips with the reality that we both have conscious freedom to control what we choose to write on this forum - to imply that it is our subconscious selves doing the conversing with no facility for consciously driven control renders the whole thing to be just meaningless unavoidable reactions with no true aim or purpose.
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

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48783 on: October 29, 2023, 03:04:31 PM »
AB,

Quote
So you seem to be implying that my unavoidable physically controlled reactions are somehow disagreeing with your unavoidable physically controlled reactions.  It is truly bizarre what the laws of physics can get up to  ???

That you find an explanation "truly bizarre" does not make it any less true.

Quote
You need to get to grips with the reality that we both have conscious freedom to control what we choose to write on this forum - to imply that it is our subconscious selves doing the conversing with no facility for consciously driven control renders the whole thing to be just meaningless unavoidable reactions with no true aim or purpose.

And you need to get to grips with the argumentum ad consequentiam being a shit argument.

Why do you persist with the idiocy you keep repeating here?
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Sebastian Toe

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48784 on: October 29, 2023, 03:14:53 PM »
So you seem to be implying that my unavoidable physically controlled reactions are somehow disagreeing with your unavoidable physically controlled reactions.  It is truly bizarre what the laws of physics can get up to  ???

You need to get to grips with the reality that we both have conscious freedom to control what we choose to write on this forum - to imply that it is our subconscious selves doing the conversing with no facility for consciously driven control renders the whole thing to be just meaningless unavoidable reactions with no true aim or purpose.
Yet you seem to be implying that we need an extra-universal, non-evidenced, magic-requiring,logic-defying "soul" in order to function.

I declare that it is you who needs to get to grip with reality.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends.'
Albert Einstein

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48785 on: October 29, 2023, 10:15:22 PM »
AB,

That you find an explanation "truly bizarre" does not make it any less true.

And you need to get to grips with the argumentum ad consequentiam being a shit argument.

Why do you persist with the idiocy you keep repeating here?
Because I have the conscious freedom to continue to witness to the truth of the God given freedom we all share as human beings
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 #48786 on: October 30, 2023, 07:35:22 AM »
You need to get to grips with the reality that we both have conscious freedom to control what we choose to write on this forum - to imply that it is our subconscious selves doing the conversing with no facility for consciously driven control renders the whole thing to be just meaningless unavoidable reactions with no true aim or purpose.

Our aims and purposes, such as they are, form subconsciously and become manifest in our conscious awareness when we are awake.  Furthermore, whatever aspirations we have are a product of our nature and nurture and we cannot control that.  Were you a ten year old boy growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp, you might well form the aspiration to become a jjihadist when you grow up, seeking the overthrow of Israel.  Likewise a boy growing up in an ultraorthodox Zionist family to might well form the converse aspiration. Having sophisticated forms of cognition, we can weigh up complex competing scenarios in our minds however we cannot 'consciously' choose which desires should be dominant and our choosing is a process of identifying the pathway that leads to the outcome we most like, and that is not something we can control.

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48787 on: October 30, 2023, 11:15:46 AM »
AB,

Quote
Because I have the conscious freedom to continue to witness to the truth of the God given freedom we all share as human beings

Justifying idiocy with more idiocy is, well, idiotic.

You claimed a while back to have "thought deeply" about your beliefs. Why then is it that you're unable here to demonstrate even the slightest evidence of that being true?
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48788 on: October 30, 2023, 02:40:15 PM »
Our aims and purposes, such as they are, form subconsciously and become manifest in our conscious awareness when we are awake.
I do not see how you can claim this to be fact when we have no definition of what comprises our conscious thoughts or how they come to be formed.
Quote
  Furthermore, whatever aspirations we have are a product of our nature and nurture and we cannot control that.
We can't control the past, but I am currently in full control of what I am currently choosing to type.  It may well be influenced by my current awareness of the past, but it is not controlled by it - I am in conscious control of my current thoughts and actions.
Quote
  Were you a ten year old boy growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp, you might well form the aspiration to become a jjihadist when you grow up, seeking the overthrow of Israel.
No one is forcing me to follow past attempts to teach or indoctrinate - we all have our God given freedom to seek out and follow what we consciously believe to be the truth.  I come across a growing number of former jihadist terrorists who have rejected their past and converted to Christianity.
Quote
  Likewise a boy growing up in an ultraorthodox Zionist family to might well form the converse aspiration.
Likewise I have come across a growing number of Jews who have come to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
Quote
Having sophisticated forms of cognition, we can weigh up complex competing scenarios in our minds however we cannot 'consciously' choose which desires should be dominant and our choosing is a process of identifying the pathway that leads to the outcome we most like, and that is not something we can control.
As I have previously said, said - I am in conscious control of what I am choosing to write - I am not a biological robot entirely driven by past physical reactions beyond my conscious control.  How could I possibly write this without having the conscious control needed to think, compose and write?
« Last Edit: October 30, 2023, 02:43:35 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

Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48789 on: October 30, 2023, 03:46:07 PM »
I do not see how you can claim this to be fact when we have no definition of what comprises our conscious thoughts or how they come to be formed.

Because there are no logically viable alternate explanations that fit the available evidence.

Quote
We can't control the past, but I am currently in full control of what I am currently choosing to type.

But that 'you' that feels as though it's in control is a product of all those past events that you haven't been able to control. You inherited some tendencies, and since your earliest moments you've been developing based on external influences that you've not been able to control. You are either the inevitable result of those circumstances, or there is a random element somewhere.

Or, as you posit, there is some intangible 'spirit' out there which has no discernible effect, cannot be demonstrated, cannot be shown by absence of a cause to be necessary, and which fails to answer the underlying question but rather just moves it down the intangible road.

O.
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Sebastian Toe

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48790 on: October 30, 2023, 04:37:30 PM »
I do not see how you can claim this to be fact when we have no definition of what comprises our conscious thoughts or how they come to be formed.
Can you provide as fact, a definition of what comprises a "soul" and how it manufactures conscious thought it how they come to be formed?

If not then "soul" has a much weight logically as a photon.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends.'
Albert Einstein

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48791 on: October 30, 2023, 07:31:26 PM »
Can you provide as fact, a definition of what comprises a "soul" and how it manufactures conscious thought it how they come to be formed?

If not then "soul" has a much weight logically as a photon.
I know my soul by what it does, which no material based scenario can ever explain or define.
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

Gordon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48792 on: October 30, 2023, 07:45:08 PM »
I know my soul by what it does, which no material based scenario can ever explain or define.


Then you don't have knowledge - so stop pretending you do.

Sebastian Toe

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48793 on: October 31, 2023, 01:01:22 AM »
I do not see how you can claim this to be fact when we have no definition of what comprises our conscious thoughts or how they come to be formed.

I know my biological brain and emergent consciousness by what it does, which no magic requiring soul scenario can ever explain or define.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends.'
Albert Einstein

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48794 on: October 31, 2023, 06:35:25 AM »
No one is forcing me to follow past attempts to teach or indoctrinate - we all have our God given freedom to seek out and follow what we consciously believe to be the truth.  I come across a growing number of former jihadist terrorists who have rejected their past and converted to Christianity.Likewise I have come across a growing number of Jews who have come to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

Yes, and do you regard this as evidence for free will ?  You could regard this as a flavour of free will, freedom from indoctrination; but is that is the limit of your 'deep thinking' on the matter ? In a more thoughtful understanding of human choices, people make choices for reasons and whilst we can make choices that free us from indoctrination, we cannot make choices that are free of reasons.  Those people converting to Christianity, they have ther reasons; likewise those converting to Islam also have their reasons.  In every case, there must be some reason why a person forms a preference one way or another.  Have you ever met anyone, anywhere, who formed preferences or beliefs out of thin air, for no reason ?

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48795 on: October 31, 2023, 08:15:07 AM »
The forum's deterministic argument against freewill. Done deal or just warmed over ultradarwinism?

jeremyp

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48796 on: October 31, 2023, 09:39:55 AM »
How could I possibly write this without having the conscious control needed to think, compose and write?

Could you have written something different? If your answer to that is yes, what would make you choose to write something different?
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Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48797 on: October 31, 2023, 10:10:01 AM »
The forum's deterministic argument against freewill. Done deal or just warmed over ultradarwinism?

Yes.

However...

1 - it's not 'the forum's' argument, there are plenty of people on here advocating that free will is a thing, you're not some brave disruptive outsider crashing in with the burning light of truth, you're as much a part of the forum as anyone else, along with the likes of Alan who's obviously a proponent of free will.

2 - what's 'Darwinism', let alone 'ultraDarwinism'? Determinism can accommodate an evolutionary model, just as free will can accommodate an evolutionary model, though neither has to. Amongst evolutionary models, there is perhaps one that is non-Darwinian. If you prefer those you just have to (wait for it) produce the evidence.

3 - Whether or not there is free will is very apparently the topic of discussion. Are you contributing something to that by republishing the question?

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

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ProfessorDavey

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48798 on: October 31, 2023, 11:07:13 AM »
I come across a growing number of former jihadist terrorists who have rejected their past and converted to Christianity. Likewise I have come across a growing number of Jews who have come to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
Firstly, of course, where exactly do you 'come across' all these former jihadist terrorists AB?

But on the broader inference that increasingly people from non-christian religions are converting to christianity I'm struggling to work out whether your assertion is based on confirmation bias, a failure to recognise that anecdote doesn't necessarily equate to reality, wishful thinking, delusion to plain old lying. But what I can say is that your claims certainly don't seem to based on any credible evidence.

So AB, I think you are a UK based catholic. So let's start there (although the data for other major christian denominations in the UK shows a a similar pattern). So it may be that you fixate on the person in your church that used to be a muslim or a jew - but that is, of course, only half of the story. You'll probably not notice (or don't want to recognise) the other half of the story, namely those who used to be in your church but have now left, whether to other religions or have become non religious.

Helpfully there is credible research on this (mainly chapter 3):

https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/research/centres/benedict-xvi/docs/2018-feb-contemporary-catholicism-report-may16.pdf

So just 0.4% (or 1 in 250) of current catholics are converts from a non christian religion. So your claimed muslim (let alone former jihadist terrorist) convert and your claimed jewish converts are as rare as hen's teeth.

But you also need to look at conversion the other way - in other words former catholics who are now adherents of none christian religions. This is 1% of former catholics, but you also have to factor in that only 55% of people brought up as catholics remain catholic. So putting those two together for every 1 convert from a non christian religion to catholicism there are about 4.5 converts from catholicism to non christian religions. So the evidence hardly backs up your inference.

But, actually conversion between religions is rare, likewise conversion from non religious to religious. What is extremely common is conversion from catholicism to being non religious. Indeed 37% of people brought up catholic 'convert' to being non religious, while just 0.9% of current catholics were previously non religious.

So for every one of your claimed converts from non christian religions to catholicism there are 4.5 converts the other way. And for every convert of a non religious person to catholicism there are 67 converts from catholicism to non religion.

But being charitable perhaps you just don't notice any of those converts away from catholicism as they are simply missing from your church, while all the time fixating on those tiny, tiny numbers of converts from other non christian religions.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #48799 on: October 31, 2023, 11:53:15 AM »
I know my biological brain and emergent consciousness by what it does, which no magic requiring soul scenario can ever explain or define.
"emergent consciousness" is just a meaningless phrase with no valid explanation of what it comprises or how it works.
No doubt you will say the same about our human soul.

The big difference is that "emergent consciousness" is a man made attempt to explain the reality of our conscious awareness, but in effect it is a meaningless label which offers no real explanation.  And it totally fails to accept the reality of human free will because it presumes that our conscious awareness emerges from material reactions beyond our conscious control.

The concept of the human soul, however, derives from the divine revelations of scripture which reveal that we have an immortal soul which is not subject to the limitations of what can emerge from physically defined material entities and has the ability to discern between good and evil and the power to choose between the two.
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