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>>>>>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??
Indeed. If there was decent evidence, the religious wouldn't need to make Faith so important. I see the talk of solipsism and moral relativism (in VP's post you quoted) as irrelevant. The way I see it, when you have to try to make Faith a good reason for belief, it is a confession that there isn't a good reason.
I will note that you prefer that the universe as a container is to contain smaller containers that contain the self-awareness!
Very simply: the universe is not hairy, or yellow, or hard, or cold, because some of the things in it are hairy, yellow, hard, or cold. There are also hairless, blue, soft, and hot things in the universe.
The universe has conscious and unconscious things in it. So it cannot be said that the universe is conscious because some things in it are conscious. You can just as well, then, say that the universe is unconscious, because it has unconscious things in it.
You cannot accurately categorize attributes unless you assign them to the things they go to. I am 59, male, and a knowledge worker. That does not make the universe those things. The universe is much older, genderless, and apparently, unemployable.
Very simply: the universe is not hairy, or yellow, or hard, or cold, because some of the things in it are hairy, yellow, hard, or cold. There are also hairless, blue, soft, and hot things in the universe.
The universe has conscious and unconscious things in it. So it cannot be said that the universe is conscious because some things in it are conscious. You can just as well, then, say that the universe is unconscious, because it has unconscious things in it.
You cannot accurately categorize attributes unless you assign them to the things they go to. I am 59, male, and a knowledge worker. That does not make the universe those things. The universe is much older, genderless, and apparently, unemployable.
And this is why you fail. You have toes, hair, hands, and consciousness, etc. But YOU are ALL those things and they are all YOU. Whence comes this all-one-thing-or another category error thinking. Wait, I know, from your fundamentalist background.
And this is why you fail. You have toes, hair, hands, and consciousness, etc. But YOU are ALL those things and they are all YOU. Whence comes this all-one-thing-or another category error thinking. Wait, I know, from your fundamentalist background.
I am the totality of all the attributes that actually belong to me. It doesn't work in the other direction. I have toes, but my toes are not me. Just try having a conversation with my great toe. It won't be very interesting.
Honestly, this comes far more from my software architecture training than anything else. A thing is the sum of its parts. The parts are not the sum of the thing. If I designed software like you're suggesting, I'd be run out of town on a rail. It's disordered thinking. To succeed in my profession you have to accurately define the actual problem, identify all the entities and abstractions you're working with, and be clear on how they relate to each other, the contracts they follow, and so forth. Creating software is creating accurate abstractions of reality and the workings of reality. And reality has consistency. What I do scales both up and down quite well. I have no good reason to think that these basic principles of composition and inheritance don't apply to all of reality. They were, after all, derived from it.
I'm kind of amazed at your dogged spouting of rubbish such as the quote above. In the service of supporting your personal dogma, you are basically arguing that up is down and down is up. Theists seem willing to go to any length to support the inevitable contradictions in their explanatory frameworks, even to the point of denying basic aspects of reality to maintain an assertion they can't support.
And this is why you fail. You have toes, hair, hands, and consciousness, etc. But YOU are ALL those things and they are all YOU. Whence comes this all-one-thing-or another category error thinking. Wait, I know, from your fundamentalist background.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
I am the totality of all the attributes that actually belong to me. It doesn't work in the other direction. I have toes, but my toes are not me. Just try having a conversation with my great toe. It won't be very interesting.
Oops, I think you just lost your own argument. Why is our reality NOT the totality of all the attributes that actually belong to it???? Are you saying our collective consciousness does not belong to our reality?
Very simply: the universe is not hairy, or yellow, or hard, or cold, because some of the things in it are hairy, yellow, hard, or cold. There are also hairless, blue, soft, and hot things in the universe.
The universe has conscious and unconscious things in it. So it cannot be said that the universe is conscious because some things in it are conscious. You can just as well, then, say that the universe is unconscious, because it has unconscious things in it.
You cannot accurately categorize attributes unless you assign them to the things they go to. I am 59, male, and a knowledge worker. That does not make the universe those things. The universe is much older, genderless, and apparently, unemployable.
Thank you. I will receive your response above as a cheerful elaboration of your previous answer(s). I will not assume that you believe we are in any form of disagreement about it. After all, how can I disagree when I have been trying to understand your view to be only in receipt of it and not trying to disprove it.
I hear your view: The universe is not those things just because it has those things.
The universe is not hairy but it has some hair in it! The universe is not male but it has some males in it!
The universe is not conscious but it has some consciousness in it!
If it helps you to know, as a theist I never thought the universe was hairy, or male, or conscious. But I wanted to leave my view point out of it while I was pressing you about yours.
Thank you.
Last edited by sylvianfisher; 06-20-2016 at 11:38 PM..
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.
With regard to your last statement above, as a theist I could offer you that, in terms of the continuing operation of the universe, which is what I am guessing you mean, there may be no need for a god in the sense of an ongoing maintenance technician, since the machinery of the universe (the physics) has already been set in perpetual motion. I mean, it's not like I ever pray to God to keep the universe running. Huh, even so, maybe the universe requires Godly maintenance or supervision on a scale we will never know. I do pray to God pretty much exclusively for what I consider my little place in this universe. But not for the operation of the universe itself. Never have. You know, I don't recall ever discussing with any Christian a need to pray for the general continuation of the laws of physics. Gee, did God create the universe but let it operate in a secular fashion while He focuses on the sentient stuff within? Ok, by saying that I have just stumbled into my reincarnation model. How interesting a stumble.
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