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Thanks. And no, I have met no one. I recall your username as having responded to one of my posts in a different thread last month, but that's all.
I'd be curious to hear of your method, if you are ok to share it here, but which might open you up for criticism, but not from me.
I am not apt to conclude too much from my experience. The amount that I can conclude from it is quite sufficient.
Glad to, somewhere else.
My 'Method' only gets silence, usually, but has had challenge from Luke copied Matthew (Alt thinker) which collapsed under evidence, denial of Luke refutes John from Eusebius, which just collapsed, and argument from "the Disciples would not die for a lie" which never got off the ground.
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On an interpersonal level when a situation summons me to take a belief when evidence is lacking, I may decide that staying neutral is not the "correct" thing and will believe in the person or what they said, and stand by that person without proof, and may do this out of faith in and/or love for that person. How I can do that for a person might relate to how I can do that for a Higher Power. Or vice-versa. Of course, YMMV.
That's ok, since we live in a world where white lies are sometimes of more value than rigid adherence to the facts. Funny that not too many years ago I might have argued that telling the truth no matter what was best. But sometimes what's best isn't really best. Perhaps because Humanity trumps even science.
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Well, my godless "swirl" model (to finally tag it with a name, a descriptor I had used early on) is supposed to recognize all notions that we see but explain them in physical terms. So, within that model, I would have to say that our assignment of nobility to Einstein and Beethoven but not to the ass-scratcher is as real a physical thing and cannot be voided just as I had said that a belief in God in that godless model was a real and physical thing and cannot be voided. Separate from all of that, and within a certain reincarnation model to which I subscribe, respect for others is an expression of divine beauty and can be doled out to both the Einsteins and the ass-scratchers, not necessarily based on the individual recipient's merit. That idea, no surprise, doesn't conflict with me as a Christian.
I love your statement here. Truly, one is gobsmacked at what is before us.
Yes, so perhaps assigning more nobility to a 'Complicated rock' as you put it, that thinks and even more to one who thinks better than the rest does not mean that the unthinking rock..indeed nature that doesn't actually think or reason (though Mystic phd may think it does - he is unclear about this) is relegated to ignominiousness (noun - from Websters and it's still 'misspelt'). It wouldn't matter except that the concept (or wording) seems to be used to deprecate the materialist/naturalist view of everything. It is a common false argument used by theists:
Atheism robs the universe of magic and wonder.
atheism reduces the universe to mere rocks.
atheism is like children playing in a sandbox and refuses to look outside.
This is all false or at least unfair and unworthy, and even if it wasn't it wouldn't make it wrong.
So far,we seem to have come down to a physical universe of matter (as it is called) and I propose physical processes and evolution etc as the 'creator' of everything including our consciousness, free will and reasoning .Or at least I have seen no convincing evidence that this couldn't be so or that there needs to be anything else.
Given that this is even more amazing than having a divine being to do it, is there (poetic wonder apart) any reason why we would disagree on how the universe (so far as we know) works?
If there is, let's talk.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-20-2016 at 07:20 AM..
Reason: there is something odd about spellcheck
It would just make you generate more seemingly impenetrable things to say, forcing the conversation to only where you want it to be
I am not aware of having said anything impenetrable. Perhaps the failing is with you and your ability to understand it, rather than what I said. Nor am I aware of "wanting the conversation" to be anywhere in particular. I followed it where it went. So it strikes me that you are simply making things up as an excuse for simply not replying to my points.
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Originally Posted by sylvianfisher
cleverly dodging elements of their response. An artful dodger.
Yet the only one actually dodging anything or anyone here is you, not me. Given that I have replied to all your points and now you are dodging mine.
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Originally Posted by sylvianfisher
the fact is that you.....
So you are attacking the poster rather than the post now is it? Ignoring all my points and simply ranting on about me personally instead. Nice.
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Originally Posted by sylvianfisher
Just sayin'.
And the problem with JUST saying is that saying it does not make it true. Try not JUST saying, but substantiating the things you say. Rather than throwing out spurious and apocryphal false personal comments about me.
The simple fact is that you brought up NDE in terms of evidence for an after life and you have not cited any reasons or evidence as to why this is so. And you have not rebutted any of the MANY reasons I gave as to why NDE fails to be evidence for an after life. Not one of them. At all. Even once.
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Originally Posted by sylvianfisher
I can't bridge it without your cooperation.
I am unaware of how to be more cooperative than I have been. It sounds like you are fabricating lack of cooperation on my part in order to fuel the false personal comments you are making about me.
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Originally Posted by sylvianfisher
I will own my portion of how you and I are fracturing, but I think you and I should not communicate further. Thank you.
Ah another chance to test out nozzferrahhtoo's first law of internet forums which states that the probability of a user replying to you actually goes UP in proportion to how many times they claim they will not be.
This is not a trick question but I am pursuing a line of thought:
Would you say that you are I cannot be creating our conversation here any more than the beaver created the dam?
Creation is an act that is mostly associated with sentient life forms. Since you and I are sentient life forms, we can create. Humans create cities just like beavers create dams and ants create ant hills. (We also say that machines and robots can create things too, so this is something of a semantic issue.)
However, we do not say that a molecular cloud creates stars and planets. But rather, stars and planets are formed from a molecular cloud. This kind of formation is called stellar evolution, and it is a blind, natural process that is not affected by the actions of any sentient life forms.
I am not aware of having said anything impenetrable. Perhaps the failing is with you and your ability to understand it, rather than what I said. Nor am I aware of "wanting the conversation" to be anywhere in particular. I followed it where it went. So it strikes me that you are simply making things up as an excuse for simply not replying to my points.
Yet the only one actually dodging anything or anyone here is you, not me. Given that I have replied to all your points and now you are dodging mine.
So you are attacking the poster rather than the post now is it? Ignoring all my points and simply ranting on about me personally instead. Nice.
And the problem with JUST saying is that saying it does not make it true. Try not JUST saying, but substantiating the things you say. Rather than throwing out spurious and apocryphal false personal comments about me.
The simple fact is that you brought up NDE in terms of evidence for an after life and you have not cited any reasons or evidence as to why this is so. And you have not rebutted any of the MANY reasons I gave as to why NDE fails to be evidence for an after life. Not one of them. At all. Even once.
I am unaware of how to be more cooperative than I have been. It sounds like you are fabricating lack of cooperation on my part in order to fuel the false personal comments you are making about me.
Ah another chance to test out nozzferrahhtoo's first law of internet forums which states that the probability of a user replying to you actually goes UP in proportion to how many times they claim they will not be.
Dude, to hear you, you are unaware in convenient places, you bait instead of talk, and the flaws are all mine. Why don't you just do my thinking for me? Don't let your ego make a fool out of you. Bottom line, you are just not worth it. Whatever crosses your mind at this moment, don't type it. Think it, but don't type it.
Last edited by sylvianfisher; 06-20-2016 at 01:08 PM..
Creation is an act that is mostly associated with sentient life forms. Since you and I are sentient life forms, we can create. Humans create cities just like beavers create dams and ants create ant hills. (We also say that machines and robots can create things too, so this is something of a semantic issue.)
However, we do not say that a molecular cloud creates stars and planets. But rather, stars and planets are formed from a molecular cloud. This kind of formation is called stellar evolution, and it is a blind, natural process that is not affected by the actions of any sentient life forms.
Thank you.
Given my imagination, there are a number of things I could say in response but any of them would look like I am trying to hold you responsible for them for the things you have said, but that would not be true. Conversation is supposed to be just conversation, not a chess game or a sharing of comments with sneaky trojan horses in them.
There's something I gotta figure out to express and your comments again remind me of my puzzle. It has to do with my occasional perception as to why do we (we = you, me, atheists, theists, anybody), in our mental management of the universe, seem to arrange the universe in a sequence of big to small (or small to big, either way will work) whereas we find the biggest things have no sentience, but then sentience appears somewhere in the middle of the sequence, but then disappears at the other end of the sequence. For instance, I will string some universe components below. (Keep in mind, I am typing this unrehearsed.) Here's my string from big to small. Notice the boldified ones. That where we claim there is sentience, right? (Some folks think plants have sentience, but I did not boldify them here.)
Moderator cut: Offensive language removed. Smells like huge amounts of egocentrism at work. Of course we declare ourselves the (exclusive) sentient ones! Of course we do! We look around and see, what, a major distinction in how things operate and so we capitalize upon it? We are seemingly arbitrary and full of inconsistencies in our performance of our sentience, in our creations and actions as humans and animals, while the other components are so exact and repetitiously exact in their physics, and such perfection in that is supposed to disqualify the universe from having sentience behind it? And our imperfect performance elevates us above all of that? Such conceit we have! Look at the effort spent to defend this!
If anything, sentience is nature's mistake in manifesting such imperfect and inconsistently behaving components like humans and animals. We and our so-called sentience hold an inferior position in the universe. Sentience is the flatulence of the universe.
Only because the ego of the mind works so hard to hold the franchise on sentience does my boldified string above look so laughable
Moderator cut: Offensive language removed. . I think theism shows an edge over atheism in this context.
I have other thoughts from time to time!
Last edited by mensaguy; 06-22-2016 at 06:19 AM..
Reason: Offensive language removed.
If anything, sentience is nature's mistake in manifesting such imperfect and inconsistently behaving components like humans and animals. We and our so-called sentience hold an inferior position in the universe. Sentience is the flatulence of the universe.
Only because the ego of the mind works so hard to hold the franchise on sentience does my boldified string above look so laughable and
Moderator cut: Offensive language removed. . I think theism shows an edge over atheism in this context.
I have other thoughts from time to time!
well, this post goes in the nonsense pile.
lmao @ natures mistake. too funny
Last edited by mensaguy; 06-22-2016 at 06:19 AM..
Reason: Quoted post edited
So far,we seem to have come down to a physical universe of matter (as it is called) and I propose physical processes and evolution etc as the 'creator' of everything including our consciousness, free will and reasoning .Or at least I have seen no convincing evidence that this couldn't be so or that there needs to be anything else.
Given that this is even more amazing than having a divine being to do it, is there (poetic wonder apart) any reason why we would disagree on how the universe (so far as we know) works?
If there is, let's talk.
As a theist, I personally don't share the same "given" that you specified, where you excluded a divine being. So, we would disagree on that.
I seek a clarification from you, please:
Do you believe that physical processes created consciousness, free will, and reasoning within a person but to act only as physical processes themselves, not at all under any control by the person? In this sense, I would be thinking of my complicated rock.
Or do you believe that physical processes created consciousness, free will, and reasoning within a person and also delivered over to the person (any amount of) the management/control of those three things (well, to the extent that we say we have control)?
As a theist, I personally don't share the same "given" that you specified, where you excluded a divine being. So, we would disagree on that.
I seek a clarification from you, please:
Do you believe that physical processes created consciousness, free will, and reasoning within a person but to act only as physical processes themselves, not at all under any control by the person? In this sense, I would be thinking of my complicated rock.
Or do you believe that physical processes created consciousness, free will, and reasoning within a person and also delivered over to the person (any amount of) the management/control of those three things (well, to the extent that we say we have control)?
A bit of both. The higher animals show a bit of like and dislike and choice rather than purely driven by evolved instincts, and we have more of it so we can ignore the impulses that we are unaware of that move us and think that we are making random choices. And possibly we are, in some cases, but I suspect that there is always something inclining us one way or another. Free will,is,as I say, an illusion, but a most convincing and useful one.
In any case, it is just a move on from the higher animals, and they are a move on from the lower animals, and they are a move on from trees and crystals and viruses and they are a move on from minerals and chemicals, and it all comes down to what matter does.
That's the way I'd read it anyway. I don't see a place for a god in any of it, and no particular need for one.
Joseph Campbell was once at a pool at a Catholic college, and he was talking to a man who was also wearing just swim trunks. The man said he was a priest at a nearby church and that he also taught literature at the college. He asked Campbell if he was a priest, and Campbell said "no Father, I am not a priest." The priest asked Campbell if he was Catholic, and Campbell replied "no Father, I am not a Catholic." The priest then asked Campbell if he believed in a personal God. Campbell was impressed that someone FINALLY asked that question the right way and gave a qualifier for the nebulous word "God." Campbell said "No Father, I do not believe in a personal God."
The priest smiled and said "and I suppose you believe there is no evidence for a personal God?" At which point the great Joseph Campbell said "Father, think about it. If there was any evidence, than what would be the value of Faith?"
It is faith, not evidence, that powers most religions. If you don't believe in faith as a philosophical concept, than obviously you will reject religion. But I never understand that to be a cohesive argument, as everyone has faith, unless you are solipsist and a moral relativist, but most atheists nowadays don't seem to be (I miss the Nietzsche style atheists, at least they were fun and consistent)
or
2) It wasn't meant to be taken literally, and most of us religious folks don't take all the Myths literally.
Either one of those replies, or a mixture of both. That is why I believe. Don't agree? I don't care because I don't believe in converting "the evvvvvvilllllll" none believers to my religion. I honestly don't care what other people believe as long as they don't impose it on anyone. Just stating my own reasons.
>>>>>It is faith, not evidence, that powers most religions.
Is faith a tool used to control the masses or is it a legitimate basis on which to build a belief in God??
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