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How does it make sense in terms of wisdom and success?
...When it comes to various things simply being relabeled as god -- love, consciousness, existence, the universe, that which a person gives highest priority -- then you are simply diluting the concept of god by pointlessly equating it with things we already have perfectly serviceable names for. Also, you are going to find atheists generally quite resistant to such word games because believers in the more standard personal invisible interventionist deities often mount such arguments to serve as a trojan horse to smuggle in their more specific personal deity into the discussion.
In which A-theist theology, and by what authority do you demand the right to define God in such limited ways?
3 of the major religions of the world (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) all define God by scripture that states: "God is love."
"I AM THAT I AM" - (God is that consciousness aware of that consciousness).
Christianity and most eastern religions (like Buddhism) go by the idea that "the kingdom (realm/experience) of God is WITHIN you." Where else would you experience it???
So, if God is an element or experience within you, then it makes sense that the belief in that part of you will contribute to wisdom and success more than by dismissing or ignoring it.
That is a sort of idealistic approach that says a decision that's not perfectly informed and properly conceptualized by a being that is, essentially, omniscient, isn't worth making. Or that making an imperfect decision means your decisions aren't meaningful.
I don't think Sky was commenting at all on the meaningfulness of decisions. Only that we'd continually make the same decisions in the same circumstance.
[quote]How is "I was destined to slit your throat" any better than "the devil made me do it"?
Again, I think this misses the mark.
Though, a better understanding of why people slit each other's throats (or commit any crime) can only be a good thing.
The ability to make choices/decisions free from bias/past emotional trauma/etc would be much better than what we have now.
Yes, I agree there. Which is why I am always arguing for reason and understanding of what drives us.Yes.I meant only that decision - making on a purely random basis with nothing but mental con flipping, whle more purely Free will, would not be an improvement on what we have.
I don't think Sky was commenting at all on the meaningfulness of decisions. Only that we'd continually make the same decisions in the same circumstance.
How is "I was destined to slit your throat" any better than "the devil made me do it"?
Again, I think this misses the mark.
Though, a better understanding of why people slit each other's throats (or commit any crime) can only be a good thing.
Yes, Skylos is right. In response to Mordant and TRANSPONDER, I don't know if you aren't agreeing with the argument I'm making or if my argument wasn't properly conveyed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
That is a sort of idealistic approach that says a decision that's not perfectly informed and properly conceptualized by a being that is, essentially, omniscient, isn't worth making. Or that making an imperfect decision means your decisions aren't meaningful.
Like Skylos said, I am saying nothing of the value or meaningfulness of your decisions. Simply how they were made.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
we're clearly not automatons either. I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, with perhaps a mild bias to nature over nurture, fate over self determination. I think most of us think we have far more agency than we ultimately actually possess. But if you insist we have no real agency then that way lies nihilistic despair and for some personalities, complete abrogation of responsibility for one's actions. How is "I was destined to slit your throat" any better than "the devil made me do it"?
Okay, again, you can't throw unconfirmed presuppositions in there like "we're clearly not automatons". Why not? How is this clear? Of course we are complex, but that is why evolution is so amazing and it says nothing of our free will or lack there of.
I think Skylos was hitting it on the head with the slit your throat thing. You could say it is like the devil made you do it, except that we have access to the devil and we can learn to understand how and who he influences to slit throats so that we can fix the problems before they occur. I personally think this is extremely valuable.
Again my argument comes down to a couple key points.
First, we don't have free will and I think we can make an honest argument for that. Again, it is near impossible to confirm, but all evidence I am aware of seems to suggest that we would not have free will. As many theists will remind you, you can not experimentally confirm "macro evolution". We can quite literally watch evolution in a petri dish, but you simply don't have the time to watch it live on a large scale. This seems to be the case with free will. We simply don't have the resources to capture a snapshot of every particle in the universe at once; but we can run experiments to confirm this and what we know about nature would seem to confirm this.
Second, the point that seems to be under siege now, it does matter and is not academic. Right now today, if you slit my throat, society would probably deem you a threat and you'd be locked away. Why? Because Mordant, the conscious, moral agent is evil. In my view, this would not be the case. You may be locked away simply because we know that you could be predisposed to violence; but the reality would be that the way your brain is functioning made you predisposed to that and if we know enough about brains, we could fix that issue and we could learn to detect it in other people before they slit someone's throat. So, yes, I believe it matters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
It is free will inasmuch as it ever could be, and anything much more involving truly random opting (though I can't imagine how we'd ever do it) wouldn't be much use to us. So, whatever you call it, and even if it does fall short of free will however you'd define it, it is what we have, and works perfectly well, or that's the way I see it.
""that doesn't alter the fact that we make choices for reasons -". You see, you didn't make any choices. Your brain made choices totally and 100% because of it's structure and because of how certain neural transmitters fired in certain ways."
That's what I mean by 'reasons'.
A groat is attached to a light socket. A dangleberry is attached and the other end dangled in your beer. Pass a current through it and it refreshes the bubbles.
I didn't mean the choices are good or ba (we don't know until later - much later, sometimes, but the reasons we make them may be good or bad - that's what I was saying.
Like I described to Mordant, there is a difference between TRANSPONDER, the moral agent making choices and TRANSPONDER acting in response to the structure of his brain. You could say "this is free will inasmuch as it ever could be" but I think this is to dilute the meaning of free will. The whole point of free will is that you can make decisions yourself and I am arguing that this is not the case. You are not freely making decisions because at any given time there is only one possible decision you could make.
I am not playing a semantics game.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
The idea of everything being an illusion is based on two things
1 everything we think of a real is made of atoms - which are near to a bit of nothing that does something as makes no difference.
2 everything we see or know of is interpreted by our senses into a pattern that we can identify. It is not how it would appear to someone using a totally different set of sense -receptors.
Yes, the combination of free will choices into predetermined plan actually works. But don't tell the Christians.
I understand this, but it doesn't seem terribly relevant? I'm sorry if I missed something. I mentioned earlier that this whole conversation and the points we're making presuppose that we have accepted our existence as real.
Your last statement regarding predetermined and free will working together doesn't make sense to me. There's either free will or actions are determined.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
A groat is attached to a light socket. A dangleberry is attached and the other end dangled in your beer. Pass a current through it and it refreshes the bubbles.
Ah, sounds handy. I'm not legally able to drink, so I haven't got much of the lingo down haha
Seems weird to call someone a groat, though.
In which A-theist theology, and by what authority do you demand the right to define God in such limited ways?
I demand nothing, I merely make observations. Consciousness is a perfectly good label for consciousness. God is a perfectly good label for god ... which for most theists, is some kind of personal intelligent agent responsible for the creation and maintenance of reality, and which generally has some sort of claims of fealty and worship on humans. I address that god concept because it is the most pervasive and consequential, since it's not just a contrived synonym for other things that we already have perfectly descriptive and serviceable names for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperSoul
3 of the major religions of the world (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) all define God by scripture that states: "God is love."
"I AM THAT I AM" - (God is that consciousness aware of that consciousness).
Sure they say those things, but also say that the unrighteous will know his wrath, that the righteous will be blessed by him with unmerited favor, and that he expects various oblations to be performed, expects reverence, obedience, and is displeased by various things like enjoying sex with the wrong persons or wearing mixed fabrics. You cannot cherry pick the nobler-sounding aspects of how god is defined, and conveniently ignore the widespread unsavory ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperSoul
Christianity and most eastern religions (like Buddhism) go by the idea that "the kingdom (realm/experience) of God is WITHIN you." Where else would you experience it???
So, if God is an element or experience within you, then it makes sense that the belief in that part of you will contribute to wisdom and success more than by dismissing or ignoring it.
Here again you are selectively paying attention to some dogma and not others. Sure these religions talk about "the divine" that is "within you", some more than others, but they talk about a lot of other things too.
I recognize what might be called the divine within me, those transcendent qualities which might be conceptualized as my higher self or the better angels of my nature. But this does not require a personal interventionist god, and it has nothing to do with a conventional god-concept, but rather with our aspirations to be our best selves. Nor does it require me to afford belief to invisible beings attempting to manifest in my id.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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I don't think belief is a choice. When I was in the church, I tried hard to make the choice to believe what I was being told. I could never find concrete evidence that would support a belief in the Christian God. When I embraced atheism, it wasn't choosing to not to believe in God, it was, for me, accepting my heart believed that there was no God that was present in this world.
Like I described to Mordant, there is a difference between TRANSPONDER, the moral agent making choices and TRANSPONDER acting in response to the structure of his brain. You could say "this is free will inasmuch as it ever could be" but I think this is to dilute the meaning of free will. The whole point of free will is that you can make decisions yourself and I am arguing that this is not the case. You are not freely making decisions because at any given time there is only one possible decision you could make.
I am not playing a semantics game...
I don't quote see the difference. Transponder the illusion of identity arising from the working of the brain responding with a do this or that reaction seems to me no different from Transponder the identity doing that thing in the case of a moral problem.
I don't think belief is a choice. When I was in the church, I tried hard to make the choice to believe what I was being told. I could never find concrete evidence that would support a belief in the Christian God. When I embraced atheism, it wasn't choosing to not to believe in God, it was, for me, accepting my heart believed that there was no God that was present in this world.
We often do that. I did. I aam arguing here is there are reasons that we cannot accept the claims being made. Very often based on the worldview we develop as we grow up.
With the sort of "Thinking" atheism we get here, this conclusion is challenged (Theist apologetics) and we have to come up with some good reasons why those challenges don't stick or change our minds.
I don't think belief is a choice. When I was in the church, I tried hard to make the choice to believe what I was being told. I could never find concrete evidence that would support a belief in the Christian God. When I embraced atheism, it wasn't choosing to not to believe in God, it was, for me, accepting my heart believed that there was no God that was present in this world.
This has been the same case with me as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
I don't quote see the difference. Transponder the illusion of identity arising from the working of the brain responding with a do this or that reaction seems to me no different from Transponder the identity doing that thing in the case of a moral problem.
There is no difference between you doing something because you have no choice and you doing something because you chose to?
I don't think belief is a choice. When I was in the church, I tried hard to make the choice to believe what I was being told. I could never find concrete evidence that would support a belief in the Christian God. When I embraced atheism, it wasn't choosing to not to believe in God, it was, for me, accepting my heart believed that there was no God that was present in this world.
Thirded.
I didn't choose not to believe.
I just didn't believe.
I could never choose to believe.
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