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This guy apparently knows nothing about neurology. If he did, he would be talking about how SPECT scans reveal the differences in human brains and how those differences effect behavior, but he simply has nothing to say on the topic of the brain. He's telling emotional stories, pointing his finger in the air, and raising his voice, but his is just high-school logic. And these guys have to insist on the person-blame approach, to explain human behavior. It's your fault that you're poor. It's your fault that you're angry. It's your fault that you're addicted. It's your fault that you can't control your emotions. Never mind that you have a cyst the size of a golf ball pressing against the area of your brain responsible for self-control and decision making. Never mind that your amygdala is releasing four times the normal quantity of some potent stress hormone. Never mind that your mother ingested nicotine for all nine months of your gestation. It's 100% your fault that you do the terrible things you do, and particularly the things you do while naked.
All - and I mean all - evidence in neurology demonstrates that consciousness is contingent on the brain. There is nothing - absolutely nothing - to suggest that our bodies contain an ability to reason or feel without a brain. Furthermore, neural imaging shows us that our decisions to act, in any given moment, are made BEFORE THEY ENTER OUR CONSCIOUS MINDS. In other words, your brain chose to punch the a$$hole stealing your wallet several fractions of a second before you did it. This isn't an opinion. This is an objective fact.
The person-blame approach is crucial to Western monotheism because without it, theists have to face the cold, hard fact that there really is no reason for the terrible things that happen to us. There is ultimately nobody to blame. There are no heroes or villains. There is no guaranteed happy ending or sas ending. Life just *is.* And I can guarantee that, even though I include this very sentence, someone will paint my position out as being opposed to the taking of personal responsibility -- opposed to the idea that criminals, for instance, should be incarcerated and/or rehabilitated for their crimes. Most religious believers see human behavioral responsibility as an either-or proposition: either you're totally guilty for your behavior or you're not. Rarely will a religious believer admit that, even at it's very core, human behavior is the result of a whole cocktail of contributing factors, over which individual humans have far less control than this or that holy book would proffer.
When it comes to human behavior, seeing shades of grey is antithetical to the worldview of the Western monotheist.
While I have no use for Ravi Zacharias (I've seen him on stage a long time ago when his hair was still black), I can't see what you are proffering as accurate...Because now you may be entering the arena of predestination [The reason you made the decision to punch the bleep stealing your wallet several fractions of a second before you did it was because it was predestined to occur just that way by G-d]...Or you can go the genetic predisposition route, the reason you did it was because you possess a genetic predisposition to that type of action in that particular situation and could not possibly do anything else but that, as opposed to an individual who is genetically predisposed to being more submissive and just gives up his wallet without a fight...Question is, did G-d genetically design him to be this way?...Or is there something environmental to the reason?...
Last edited by mensaguy; 01-03-2017 at 05:36 AM..
Reason: language
While I have no use for Ravi Zacharias (I've seen him on stage a long time ago when his hair was still black), I can't see what you are proffering as accurate...Because now you may be entering the arena of predestination [The reason you made the decision to punch the bleep stealing your wallet several fractions of a second before you did it was because it was predestined to occur just that way by G-d]...Or you can go the genetic predisposition route, the reason you did it was because you possess a genetic predisposition to that type of action in that particular situation and could not possibly do anything else but that, as opposed to an individual who is genetically predisposed to being more submissive and just gives up his wallet without a fight...Question is, did G-d genetically design him to be this way?...Or is there something environmental to the reason?...
My understanding is that our decisions are made by a sort of committee vote between the conscious mind and several components of the unconscious mind. So I suggest that some combination of predestination and freewill exists. I obviously can't define that combination in any intelligent way, because I'm no neurologist, but defining it isn't really the point here; the point is that Mr. Zacharias apparently holds to a blame-placing sort of approach to human behavior that is ignorant of so much of what we know about the brain.
Last edited by mensaguy; 01-03-2017 at 05:37 AM..
Reason: Quoted post edited
The Mind is still a fair gap for God, just as abiogenesis and Cosmic origins. The situation is that nobody knows for sure but so far all that we know indicated material and physical processes and not a god. That is the case, even though we get half -assed apologists talking bunk about it.
My understanding is that our decisions are made by a sort of committee vote between the conscious mind and several components of the unconscious mind. So I suggest that some combination of predestination and freewill exists. I obviously can't define that combination in any intelligent way, because I'm no neurologist, but defining it isn't really the point here; the point is that Mr. Zacharias apparently holds to a blame-placing sort of approach to human behavior that is ignorant of so much of what we know about the brain.
Well, the connection between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind may hold the key here...From my studies, everything that you have seen, heard, sensed or done in life is recorded in your subconscious...So, at a certain point in life a situation arises which demands you response and where the decision of the particular response is made, is probably made in your subconscious based off of past circumstances that are recorded in your subconscious...The subconscious takes into account everything that has occurred in your life (including your genetic predispositions) and makes that "fraction of a second" decision and relays it to your conscious mind and you act...
neural imaging shows us that our decisions to act, in any given moment, are made BEFORE THEY ENTER OUR CONSCIOUS MINDS.
How nice. Will you elaborate please on what instruments were used to capture the "conscious mind"/Decision" to observe the time sequence between the two? I am presuming, some imaging instrument detected "decision" and that detected "conscious mind" and could produce a timed, chronometeric sequence between the two?
Now, please, be very specific in relationship to "decision" image and "conscious mind" image. I am salivating to see THAT. I hope you understand the difference between "decision", "conscious mind" and images of neural activity? Or, it's all the same? Then we have nothing to discuss.
NO definitely NOT a rabbi in any sense of the word
Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias
26 March 1946 (age 70)
"Ravi Zacharias is an Indian-born Canadian-American Christian apologist. A defender of traditional evangelicalism, Zacharias is the author of numerous Christian books"
He was an atheist until age 17 when he tried to kill himself by swallowing poison
neural imaging shows us that our decisions to act, in any given moment, are made BEFORE THEY ENTER OUR CONSCIOUS MINDS.
How nice. Will you elaborate please on what instruments were used to capture the "conscious mind"/Decision" to observe the time sequence between the two? I am presuming, some imaging instrument detected "decision" and that detected "conscious mind" and could produce a timed, chronometeric sequence between the two?
Now, please, be very specific in relationship to "decision" image and "conscious mind" image. I am salivating to see THAT. I hope you understand the difference between "decision", "conscious mind" and images of neural activity? Or, it's all the same? Then we have nothing to discuss.
I remember seeing or reading something showing that, before the subject related a decision or idea, the relevant lobe of th brain activated. The evidence was that our mind (subconsious) made its decision before the conscious mind knew of it.
Now Mystic and i discussed this and his view was that the subconscious acted like a receiver for God, who made our decisions for us and the news got through to use in due course. I recall that he also saw this as related to the Soul and the evidence was that the subconscius was more 'spirtually' advanced than the conscious 'Carnal' mind.
My resopnse was that the subconcious was the more instinctive and evolved type of thought, and it is actually the conscious,reasoning, brain that is capable of the more adanced logical and ethical reasoning and second -thoughts the more kneejerk unthinking reactions of the subconscious.
Now Mystic and i discussed this and his view was that the subconscious acted like a receiver for God, who made our decisions for us and the news got through to use in due course. I recall that he also saw this as related to the Soul and the evidence was that the subconscious was more 'spiritually' advanced than the conscious 'Carnal' mind.
Not quite, Arq. I appreciate it when you try to summarize my views because I can see what hang-ups exist that drive your misunderstanding. Our brain is a TRANSceiver meaning it produces our "in-process" Spirit which we then receive and experience as conscious awareness like a delayed broadcast using what was recorded during the production. Our in-process Spirit resides as EM-like energy in the unified consciousness field of God but is NOT fully part of it until our death and separation from the transceiver (brain). We are in contact with it and it interacts with our animal nature sometimes in an adversarial relationship with our baser urges. This conflict (overcoming) is what strengthens our Spirit.
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My resopnse was that the subconcious was the more instinctive and evolved type of thought, and it is actually the conscious,reasoning, brain that is capable of the more adanced logical and ethical reasoning and second -thoughts the more kneejerk unthinking reactions of the subconscious.
The subconscious is one-half as you describe it, but the other half is our Spirit residing within the unified field. Their adversarial conflicts define our character as expressed by our delayed broadcast conscious mind. Freud would have called them the ID, Superego, and ego.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 01-02-2017 at 12:56 PM..
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