I know you think that, and even want to believe that. I do agree that there are closed minds on this board. However, I once held the same, or at least similar, views as most everyone else on this board about this subject. Open-mindedness is what turbulently led me to my current views.Sam Lowry said:With respect, I doubt it. There would always be another hypothesis, another test, another hope of explanation. You're no more open-minded on the subject than anyone else here.TexasScientist said:Give me falsifiable, objective, empirical evidence, and I will accept the same way I accept any other scientific evidence.Sam Lowry said:If you mean scientifically testable proof, then by definition you're not talking about the supernatural. There is historical evidence, but there we encounter another problem -- any historical account that supports the supernatural is automatically unreliable in your view. Whether knowingly or not, you've designed a paradoxical standard of proof. It excludes any possibility that you would recognize evidence of the supernatural even if it did exist. This ought to be a huge red flag if you're really trying to pursue a rational inquiry.TexasScientist said:If you can produce empirical objective proof of any (imaginary) supernatural being, why wouldn't I accept it. I won't hold my breath while waiting.Sam Lowry said:So you'll accept the supernatural, but only if we can prove there's nothing supernatural about it.TexasScientist said:
Probability is testable to a point of being reliable for conclusions. The burden is on you to prove something supernatural is probable.
What's your best evidence for the existence of God?
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Last: 1 yr ago by BusyTarpDuster2017
You're saying a supernatural power makes your choices for you. I'm saying our brain has the capacity, to analyze problems and information, and from its learned frame of reference can make determinations on how to act on that information. We don't fully understand every aspect of how that works, yet. There is no credible evidence of anything other operative force.D. C. Bear said:TexasScientist said:That's simply not true. Are you saying a supernatural power makes your choices for you? Choice can be the product of a neurological process. You certainly can't make a choice if your brain is sufficiently impaired. A choice you do make could be a bad choice based upon that impairment. If there is a supernatural component, a bad choice would not be possible. Everything we observe and understand about consciousness indicates it is a biological function. You have no evidence there is a supernatural component involved.D. C. Bear said:TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
That's not really addressing the central question in the post you quoted.
If there is nothing beyond the material, nothing anyone does or thinks can be a result of a choice. However, you claim that the ability to choose exists. These two beliefs, which you seem to hold, are incompatible with each other.
There is no need evidence for a "supernatural component involved" to accept what is clear on its face. If the material world is all there is then there is no such thing as a "choice," conscious or not.
You want to paint it that way. It's clear that emotion and love are the interactive product of neurological and biochemical activities in the brain. Love for someone is real and physical. It's more 'utter bs" to say that emotion and love comes from some unidentified, unquantified, supernatural force controlling you. That would mean you have no ability to make a decision, and are totally under control of a supernatural being or power. You'll fall in love with who they say. There is where your fiction rests.Doc Holliday said:If physicalism is all there is he must accept that his consciousness and any emotion he's ever felt is a useful fiction driven by neural activity. It quite literally means any love he feels for anyone or anything is complete utter bullsh it and a mechanism used to control him.D. C. Bear said:There is no need evidence for a "supernatural component involved" to accept what is clear on its face. If the material world is all there is then there is no such thing as a "choice," conscious or not.TexasScientist said:That's simply not true. Are you saying a supernatural power makes your choices for you? Choice can be the product of a neurological process. You certainly can't make a choice if your brain is sufficiently impaired. A choice you do make could be a bad choice based upon that impairment. If there is a supernatural component, a bad choice would not be possible. Everything we observe and understand about consciousness indicates it is a biological function. You have no evidence there is a supernatural component involved.D. C. Bear said:TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
That's not really addressing the central question in the post you quoted.
If there is nothing beyond the material, nothing anyone does or thinks can be a result of a choice. However, you claim that the ability to choose exists. These two beliefs, which you seem to hold, are incompatible with each other.
No I'm saying our brain has the ability to make analytical decisions from what has been learned through physical processes. Your saying that you have no ability choice outside of what some unidentifiable, and unquantifiable supernatural force directs you. If what you say is the case, why would your brain need to learn anything about mathematics in order decide anything that uses math for a solution? You're supernatural force would just simply beam you the answer.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:And you are trying to hide behind complexity, thinking that by adding more layers of physics, "choice" and "free will" can emerge. "Systemic interaction" is just more physics, the end result of which would still only be determined by physics. "Neuro capacity" and "learning" are inevitable end results of physics pathways. Thus, "applied" physics is merely the determined output of determined inputs processed by a determined "program". It's all just physics playing itself out. If there is only physics, then what results is inevitable and it can't be any other way. You are not escaping your problem, you're just kicking it down the road.TexasScientist said:You're trying to find a simplistic answer to complexity. I don't think 'guide' is a good description. It's systemic interaction. Clearly a dog is physically limited in its ability to learn, and to reason through a problem compared to a human. Right and wrong is something that is learned and stored for recall limited by a species' or individual's neuro capacity. It's applied physics as opposed to 'along for the ride' out of control.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Complexity doesn't solve your problem. Complexity is just more physics. The ultimate question before you is whether you can guide that physics or not. If you can, then by what mechanism? By logical necessity it must be outside physics, i.e. supernatural. If not, then whether you're a simple ant, a dog, a monkey, or a complex human - whatever you think, analyze, learn, whatever "desire" you have for a certain outcome, it is all just the inevitable result of unguided physics playing itself out. Consequently, there can be no such thing as "right" or "wrong" thinking. It's all just physics, and you're just along for the ride. Your mind is no more significant than a fart in the wind, going where the wind takes it.TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
Rule? Not sure what you mean here. We don't know if there is a multiverse, although quantum theory is pointing in that direction. We may not have the means or ability to ever know, because of our mental capacity and our confinement to the universe we find ourselves in. Possibly, discovery of gravitational waves interacting with our universe will lead to a clue about a multiverse.LIB,MR BEARS said:TexasScientist said:Doc Holliday said:You have no proof that consciousness arises from the brain. Show me the math.TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
What if the brain picks up consciousness like an antenna and has an effect on it?
You don't even know if what you're conscious experience is revealing to you is fundamental reality. Space and time itself very well could be a useful fiction brought on by natural selection so that we have utility because fundamental reality is too complex to handle.
You click on a folder on your computer screen and put it into the trash. You couldn't toggle millions of voltages in a second to make that happen. Reality very well may be similar. We know for a fact that we can only perceive a very small piece of the color spectrum, so why wouldn't that mechanism extend to all of reality?
The math on evolutionary game theory shows there's a zero percent chance that our consciousness reveals fundamental reality. That theory has never been debunked.Math isn't required. We have observation. Show me the math for the supernatural.Quote:
You have no proof that consciousness arises from the brain. Show me the math.What ifs? What if you only exist in a computer simulation, and when the simulation ends you end? All you have is science fiction.Quote:
What if the brain picks up consciousness like an antenna and has an effect on it?Quote:
You don't even know if what you're conscious experience is revealing to you is fundamental reality. Space and time itself very well could be a useful fiction brought on by natural selection so that we have utility because fundamental reality is too complex to handle.
Where is your evidence for this other than your own science fiction. Clearly we don't understand everything, but what knowledge we have acquired through science has never suggested or pointed to supernatural mysticism to explain anything. Science is in the business to unravel complexity. Assigning complexity of what we have not unraveled or may be unable to unravel, to a supernatural answer is nothing more than plugging in a god of the gaps answer.What? What we can't see we know about through other scientific investigation. We know it's there through scientific investigation, even if we can't see it with our eyes. If your idea of the supernatural is true, then you should be able to see those other electromatic magnetic waves in the color spectrum.Quote:
You click on a folder on your computer screen and put it into the trash. You couldn't toggle millions of voltages in a second to make that happen. Reality very well may be similar. We know for a fact that we can only perceive a very small piece of the color spectrum, so why wouldn't that mechanism extend to all of reality?
Math games are simply that, math games. In and of themselves, they prove nothing. Our consciousness is a biological component of the whole that gives us the physical ability to investigate and understand reality. We're not required to understand or even be able to understand every aspect of reality.Quote:
The math on evolutionary game theory shows there's a zero percent chance that our consciousness reveals fundamental reality. That theory has never been debunked.
You want evidence for the "what ifs"?
Why doesn't this rule apply to the multiverse?
We don't know everything, yet. But, what we understand about neuroscience, biology, and physics is the fundamental foundation upon which to conduct scientific experiments, to unravel what we don't know. When Peter Higgs proposed what is now know as the Higgs boson, we didn't know it or the Higgs field existed until it was discovered at the Cern LHC. The concepts to being to explain it rest in biochemistry, neurology, and physics. Your ideas have no basis or even come close to any other explanation.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:The observation that suggests subjective conscious experience is more than biology, is that there doesn't exist any fundamental concept in biology that can even begin to explain it. One observational, empirical proof of that, is your absolute failure in providing even a sniff of one. And you fail because it can't be done.TexasScientist said:You have no observation to suggest that biology is anything otherwise. Biologic function is not a component of consciousness, it is the totality of which consciousness is a component and product.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:The only observation you're making, is that biology is a necessary component of consciousness. You are not proving that it is a sufficient component. To illustrate, here is an analogy of your argument, bolded above:TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
"Seeing moving pictures depends on TV activity. You couldn't see the pictures until the TV was finished being built from the factory. There is no evidence that the pictures can be seen without the TV being "on". We don't have to understand all the details of how the pictures are made to make that observation."
This argument can NOT be used to claim that the entirety of being able to view pictures comes from the physical TV itself. While it is correct that you need a physical TV to see the picture (it's necessary), it completely misses the fact that the TV is merely a physical receiver of an outside signal that is completely independent from the TV, and can not produce the pictures without it (it's not sufficient). Doc's example of the radio antenna is just a reiteration of this point.
That's a poor analogy. Ability to view and process what is observed on a TV is a part of the brain's conscious function. This is true of any observations made by the brain. There is no comparison between the operation of a television and the brain, other than the laws of physics govern the operation of both. A TV is an inanimate object.
You must have some sort of deficit which prevents you from understanding analogies. The TV is analogous to the biological/physical brain, and the pictures on the tv are analogous to subjective conscious experience. Though you need the physical TV to see the pictures, the pictures are not the product of the TV itself.
The TV and brain are not comparable. One is inorganic, and the other is organic, with all of the complexities that come from organics, including consciousness. There is simply no evidence that consciousness is broadcast from somewhere else in the universe, or even into our universe from a multiverse.
Rule, yes. Your rule. Maybe I should have said "standard". You apply "rules" or "standards" to those that believe in a creator God, the "super-natural" and then belittle when you say there is no empirical evidence.TexasScientist said:Rule? Not sure what you mean here. We don't know if there is a multiverse, although quantum theory is pointing in that direction. We may not have the means or ability to ever know, because of our mental capacity and our confinement to the universe we find ourselves in. Possibly, discovery of gravitational waves interacting with our universe will lead to a clue about a multiverse.LIB,MR BEARS said:TexasScientist said:Doc Holliday said:You have no proof that consciousness arises from the brain. Show me the math.TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
What if the brain picks up consciousness like an antenna and has an effect on it?
You don't even know if what you're conscious experience is revealing to you is fundamental reality. Space and time itself very well could be a useful fiction brought on by natural selection so that we have utility because fundamental reality is too complex to handle.
You click on a folder on your computer screen and put it into the trash. You couldn't toggle millions of voltages in a second to make that happen. Reality very well may be similar. We know for a fact that we can only perceive a very small piece of the color spectrum, so why wouldn't that mechanism extend to all of reality?
The math on evolutionary game theory shows there's a zero percent chance that our consciousness reveals fundamental reality. That theory has never been debunked.Math isn't required. We have observation. Show me the math for the supernatural.Quote:
You have no proof that consciousness arises from the brain. Show me the math.What ifs? What if you only exist in a computer simulation, and when the simulation ends you end? All you have is science fiction.Quote:
What if the brain picks up consciousness like an antenna and has an effect on it?Quote:
You don't even know if what you're conscious experience is revealing to you is fundamental reality. Space and time itself very well could be a useful fiction brought on by natural selection so that we have utility because fundamental reality is too complex to handle.
Where is your evidence for this other than your own science fiction. Clearly we don't understand everything, but what knowledge we have acquired through science has never suggested or pointed to supernatural mysticism to explain anything. Science is in the business to unravel complexity. Assigning complexity of what we have not unraveled or may be unable to unravel, to a supernatural answer is nothing more than plugging in a god of the gaps answer.What? What we can't see we know about through other scientific investigation. We know it's there through scientific investigation, even if we can't see it with our eyes. If your idea of the supernatural is true, then you should be able to see those other electromatic magnetic waves in the color spectrum.Quote:
You click on a folder on your computer screen and put it into the trash. You couldn't toggle millions of voltages in a second to make that happen. Reality very well may be similar. We know for a fact that we can only perceive a very small piece of the color spectrum, so why wouldn't that mechanism extend to all of reality?
Math games are simply that, math games. In and of themselves, they prove nothing. Our consciousness is a biological component of the whole that gives us the physical ability to investigate and understand reality. We're not required to understand or even be able to understand every aspect of reality.Quote:
The math on evolutionary game theory shows there's a zero percent chance that our consciousness reveals fundamental reality. That theory has never been debunked.
You want evidence for the "what ifs"?
Why doesn't this rule apply to the multiverse?
Christians point to the evidence as being sufficient for belief but that isn't good enough for you.
Scientist point to the math as being sufficient for belief but that IS good enough for you. You have a double standard.
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, p.6) Frederic Bastiat
TexasScientist said:You're saying a supernatural power makes your choices for you. I'm saying our brain has the capacity, to analyze problems and information, and from its learned frame of reference can make determinations on how to act on that information. We don't fully understand every aspect of how that works, yet. There is no credible evidence of anything other operative force.D. C. Bear said:TexasScientist said:That's simply not true. Are you saying a supernatural power makes your choices for you? Choice can be the product of a neurological process. You certainly can't make a choice if your brain is sufficiently impaired. A choice you do make could be a bad choice based upon that impairment. If there is a supernatural component, a bad choice would not be possible. Everything we observe and understand about consciousness indicates it is a biological function. You have no evidence there is a supernatural component involved.D. C. Bear said:TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
That's not really addressing the central question in the post you quoted.
If there is nothing beyond the material, nothing anyone does or thinks can be a result of a choice. However, you claim that the ability to choose exists. These two beliefs, which you seem to hold, are incompatible with each other.
There is no need evidence for a "supernatural component involved" to accept what is clear on its face. If the material world is all there is then there is no such thing as a "choice," conscious or not.
I am not saying that "a" supernatural power makes choices for me. I am saying that if choice exists then a supernatural element is required. I haven't proven that choice exists, or what that supernatural element would be.
You are taking the existence of choice as a given, but we cannot have a materialistic universe and have choice at the same time.
Your open-mindedness apparently didn't have a screen door, and all the bugs got in.TexasScientist said:I know you think that, and even want to believe that. I do agree that there are closed minds on this board. However, I once held the same, or at least similar, views as most everyone else on this board about this subject. Open-mindedness is what turbulently led me to my current views.Sam Lowry said:With respect, I doubt it. There would always be another hypothesis, another test, another hope of explanation. You're no more open-minded on the subject than anyone else here.TexasScientist said:Give me falsifiable, objective, empirical evidence, and I will accept the same way I accept any other scientific evidence.Sam Lowry said:If you mean scientifically testable proof, then by definition you're not talking about the supernatural. There is historical evidence, but there we encounter another problem -- any historical account that supports the supernatural is automatically unreliable in your view. Whether knowingly or not, you've designed a paradoxical standard of proof. It excludes any possibility that you would recognize evidence of the supernatural even if it did exist. This ought to be a huge red flag if you're really trying to pursue a rational inquiry.TexasScientist said:If you can produce empirical objective proof of any (imaginary) supernatural being, why wouldn't I accept it. I won't hold my breath while waiting.Sam Lowry said:So you'll accept the supernatural, but only if we can prove there's nothing supernatural about it.TexasScientist said:
Probability is testable to a point of being reliable for conclusions. The burden is on you to prove something supernatural is probable.
There does seem to be some built in intelligence in all living things so besides that I don't see any evidence. As crazy or illogical it may sound to some, it all came from nothing seems to the most likely explanation. Because if say there is a God then where did God come from and so on it has to get back to nothing. We know lots of something comes from nothing in the quantum world so It could be. There is mountains of evidence that all man's ideas of God are culturally born and actually handed down from culture to cultures and crossing over to other cultures with slight variances. Judaism and Christianity stories all have borrowed ideas of other cultures lbelief systems typically by a ruling culture. Sacrifice, God in man's form, virgin births, etc etc all predated Christianity. Most religion also has an angel or higher power who gives a human a vision and he becomes a prophet. Muhammad for example was given his Islam ideas from the angel Gabriel. many times fake biographies and stories to create their propaganda. There is only one example of an eyewitness account of Jesus in the religious book the Bible and it is Paul's vision on the road.. so it s likely that everything written 4pnuears and more later the entire new testament is a religious fiction. Allot of the books that were not allowed in the final text that makes up the Bible were pretty crazy stories about Jesus as a child. They left the other crazy false stories in like raised from the dead, walking on water etc etc to support their belief system that Jesus was God I n man's form The Christian religion like all the other religions is pretty easy to see that they are man-made stories to enable a belief system.BaylorJacket said:
I've been exploring different religious and philosophical ideas lately, and I would love to hear your thoughts on what convinces you that God exists. As someone who hasn't yet been convinced by arguments for the existence of God, I'm hoping to learn more about what draws others to belief in a higher power.
I don't necessarily doubt the possibility of such a being, but I also don't know how one could be proven or dis-proven definitively. That's why I'd like to hear from some of you who do believe in God - what is it about your experience or understanding of the world that makes you believe there is a God?
Of course, I'm open to hearing from people who don't believe in God as well. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
It always makes me wonder how Christians today ignore so many historical facts. If not for all the wars waged in the name of Christianity that destroyed entire cultures and eliminate their belief systems then you would be worshipping the viking gods or the Indian spirits etc etc. The catholics were murderers, actually beheading natives if they did not convert. Does not sound like a personal God that loves and cares about all living creatures bit sure does sound like typical human behavior.
Then you hear all the time my prayers were answered when something goes right in a person's life poor it was God's plan etc etc, however can't answer why millions of prayers go unanswered every single day when parents are losing children to disease starvation and murder etc. They just choose to ignore facts.
All those are reasons I could longer follow Christianity as a viable belief system nor any other man made idea of God. Then cam the most damning evidence for Christianity that there was never a need for forgiveness pf sin, another man made idea. We as the present human form has been here for about 300,000 years. Humans have been here in some form for millions of years. At no point was there ever a perfect human as we now know exactly how we came to be.it is undeniable.
I hope that we continue to live after we die but I think it is most likely not gonna be and when we are dead it won't matter cause we won't have to process it. I do think it helps humans deal with death and knowing we will all die. History and today's scientific knowledge makes believing in any of man's religions absurd. I write songs for people who lose love ones that will comfort them thinking there is an afterlife because it is a empathetic thing to do and though me and no other human being know what happens when we die.
If all there is, is physics, then "analytical decisions" and what you've "learned" is just physics playing itself out. It could not have been any other way. If you think that an analytical decision you made was freely made, then how did you initiate the movement of atoms and molecules in your brain that corresponded to that "decision"? Could you have "decided" differently? If so, then how would you have moved the atoms and molecules in your brain in a completely different direction and manner, corresponding to the different choice? What was the force that changed its direction? And from where did it come?TexasScientist said:No I'm saying our brain has the ability to make analytical decisions from what has been learned through physical processes. Your saying that you have no ability choice outside of what some unidentifiable, and unquantifiable supernatural force directs you. If what you say is the case, why would your brain need to learn anything about mathematics in order decide anything that uses math for a solution? You're supernatural force would just simply beam you the answer.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:And you are trying to hide behind complexity, thinking that by adding more layers of physics, "choice" and "free will" can emerge. "Systemic interaction" is just more physics, the end result of which would still only be determined by physics. "Neuro capacity" and "learning" are inevitable end results of physics pathways. Thus, "applied" physics is merely the determined output of determined inputs processed by a determined "program". It's all just physics playing itself out. If there is only physics, then what results is inevitable and it can't be any other way. You are not escaping your problem, you're just kicking it down the road.TexasScientist said:You're trying to find a simplistic answer to complexity. I don't think 'guide' is a good description. It's systemic interaction. Clearly a dog is physically limited in its ability to learn, and to reason through a problem compared to a human. Right and wrong is something that is learned and stored for recall limited by a species' or individual's neuro capacity. It's applied physics as opposed to 'along for the ride' out of control.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Complexity doesn't solve your problem. Complexity is just more physics. The ultimate question before you is whether you can guide that physics or not. If you can, then by what mechanism? By logical necessity it must be outside physics, i.e. supernatural. If not, then whether you're a simple ant, a dog, a monkey, or a complex human - whatever you think, analyze, learn, whatever "desire" you have for a certain outcome, it is all just the inevitable result of unguided physics playing itself out. Consequently, there can be no such thing as "right" or "wrong" thinking. It's all just physics, and you're just along for the ride. Your mind is no more significant than a fart in the wind, going where the wind takes it.TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
"If what you say is the case, why would your brain need to learn anything about mathematics in order decide anything that uses math for a solution? You're supernatural force would just simply beam you the answer." - You need to learn math in order to make decisions that uses math, just like you need to develop a strong enough arm to pick up a hammer, in order to decide if you're going to nail something. Your supernatural force wouldn't "beam" you arm muscles either. "Learning" or "arm strength" don't precede choice, they just enable you to have more choices.
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If all there is, is physics, then "analytical decisions" and what you've "learned" is just physics playing itself out. It could not have been any other way. If you think that an analytical decision you made was freely made, then how did you initiate the movement of atoms and molecules in your brain that corresponded to that "decision"? Could you have "decided" differently? If so, then how would you have moved the atoms and molecules in your brain in a completely different direction and manner, corresponding to the different choice? What was the force that changed its direction? And from where did it come?TexasScientist said:No I'm saying our brain has the ability to make analytical decisions from what has been learned through physical processes. Your saying that you have no ability choice outside of what some unidentifiable, and unquantifiable supernatural force directs you. If what you say is the case, why would your brain need to learn anything about mathematics in order decide anything that uses math for a solution? You're supernatural force would just simply beam you the answer.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:And you are trying to hide behind complexity, thinking that by adding more layers of physics, "choice" and "free will" can emerge. "Systemic interaction" is just more physics, the end result of which would still only be determined by physics. "Neuro capacity" and "learning" are inevitable end results of physics pathways. Thus, "applied" physics is merely the determined output of determined inputs processed by a determined "program". It's all just physics playing itself out. If there is only physics, then what results is inevitable and it can't be any other way. You are not escaping your problem, you're just kicking it down the road.TexasScientist said:You're trying to find a simplistic answer to complexity. I don't think 'guide' is a good description. It's systemic interaction. Clearly a dog is physically limited in its ability to learn, and to reason through a problem compared to a human. Right and wrong is something that is learned and stored for recall limited by a species' or individual's neuro capacity. It's applied physics as opposed to 'along for the ride' out of control.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Complexity doesn't solve your problem. Complexity is just more physics. The ultimate question before you is whether you can guide that physics or not. If you can, then by what mechanism? By logical necessity it must be outside physics, i.e. supernatural. If not, then whether you're a simple ant, a dog, a monkey, or a complex human - whatever you think, analyze, learn, whatever "desire" you have for a certain outcome, it is all just the inevitable result of unguided physics playing itself out. Consequently, there can be no such thing as "right" or "wrong" thinking. It's all just physics, and you're just along for the ride. Your mind is no more significant than a fart in the wind, going where the wind takes it.TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
"If what you say is the case, why would your brain need to learn anything about mathematics in order decide anything that uses math for a solution? You're supernatural force would just simply beam you the answer." - You need to learn math in order to make decisions that uses math, just like you need to develop a strong enough arm to pick up a hammer, in order to decide if you're going to nail something. Your supernatural force wouldn't "beam" you arm muscles either. "Learning" or "arm strength" don't precede choice, they just enable you to have more choices.
To be fair, we do (accurately, at times) make decisions that require math for a solution without knowing anything about the math required to reach those solutions, and we do so on a regular basis.
How can Christians believe God created everything, if everything includes Himself? In order to create oneself, you must exist before you exist, which is logical nonsense. Obviously, your understanding of what is meant by "everything" is in error.quash said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
Even if you mean "everything" as in every conceivable thing outside of God, then it is still logical nonsense. If God IS something, such as "good", then the concept of "that which God is NOT" must also logically exist as a mere consequence of His existence and Him being "good" - it isn't a consequence of His doing, i.e. His "creation". That was the point of the house builder example. Evil is that which God is NOT, so to say that God created evil is nonsensical.
I agree. We are probably all doing it, all the time. I read about "accidental geniuses" who could perform difficult math calculations after some kind of head trauma or seizure episode. The belief was that everyone's brains are continuously doing very complex math calculations without us realizing it, for example like when catching a ball which requires rapid assessment of speed, trajectory, location, etc. These accidental geniuses simply became conscious of all of it due to some mixing up of the wiring in their brains due to the trauma, and so they walk around and "see" math in everything.D said:
If all there is, is physics, then "analytical decisions" and what you've "learned" is just physics playing itself out. It could not have been any other way. If you think that an analytical decision you made was freely made, then how did you initiate the movement of atoms and molecules in your brain that corresponded to that "decision"? Could you have "decided" differently? If so, then how would you have moved the atoms and molecules in your brain in a completely different direction and manner, corresponding to the different choice? What was the force that changed its direction? And from where did it come?Quote:
"If what you say is the case, why would your brain need to learn anything about mathematics in order decide anything that uses math for a solution? You're supernatural force would just simply beam you the answer." - You need to learn math in order to make decisions that uses math, just like you need to develop a strong enough arm to pick up a hammer, in order to decide if you're going to nail something. Your supernatural force wouldn't "beam" you arm muscles either. "Learning" or "arm strength" don't precede choice, they just enable you to have more choices.
To be fair, we do (accurately, at times) make decisions that require math for a solution without knowing anything about the math required to reach those solutions, and we do so on a regular basis.
Your mistake is counting evil as an object to be created, rather than a moral quality.
"The presence of creation reflects that God is all powerful." You have no basis for this assertion other than the Bible. But the Bible is not science.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:You keep dodging. Please answer.Nice job on the translation but a theodicy based on God is love and God is all powerful is doomed to fail logically and philosophically. One cannot hold those two notions in any kind of dynamic tension.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:Nice job on the translation but a theodicy based on God is love and God is all powerful is doomed to fail logically and philosophically. One cannot hold those two notions in any kind of dynamic tension.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I picked up on how to speak '47 so I can translate:Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
Hih? You're just making stuff up. You know I don't believe any of that stuff about Joel Osteen. I know there's suffering in the world I just don't have a theism that blooms. God. You have the sea is the blinds God because your god call Bear is all powerful.
Please strike my "Joel Osteen" comment from the record.
Forgive though, I have ready your post 4 times and still don't understand it.
"Huh? You're just making stuff up. I don't believe any of that stuff about Joel Osteen. I know there's suffering in the world, I just don't have a theism that blames God. You have a theism that blames God because you're God, CokeBear, is all-powerful."
In other words, he just isn't listening to what anyone is saying to him, he just wants to be a broken record.
I do repeat myself but you cannot defend those two assertions as right at the same time.
Just because you are personally too small-minded to grasp something does not mean others cannot or that something isn't logically and philosophically defensible.
I do repeat myself but you cannot defend those two assertions as right at the same time.
All you have is name calling.
You don't like being called "small-minded?" Sorry about that. Let me rephrase. Just because you have come to what you believe is iron clad reasoning does not mean that other people, who have a better understanding of reality than you do, did not sufficiently address your objections centuries ago.
God created us with free will. That includes the free will for us to act in ways that are contrary to God's nature. It does not follow that God must do what you want (take away that free will) just because you do not like the consequences of that free will. It is not necessary for God to eliminate all evil at every instant to be both all powerful and all loving and you repeating it over and over does not change that fact.
For God to be all loving, we necessarily require free will. That same free will creates the possibility of us acting in ways that are contrary to God's nature. We call it sin. The presence of creation reflects that God is all powerful. The presence of sin reflects the reality that God is all loving and the grace of the cross perfectly reflects both of those truths.
In addition, you are ignoring that such a claim "God is all powerful" means God has ALL the power yet we human have some of the power. Those two statement are logically consistent that you yet to address.
Waco1947 ,la
Thank youquash said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
Waco1947 ,la
Your bolded quote is NOT true. Christians do not need to look to the Bible for science. It was never intended to be read as such.Waco1947 said:
"The presence of creation reflects that God is all powerful." You have no basis for this assertion other than the Bible. But the Bible is not science.
Christians can look science to see God's handiwork. Fr. Georges Lematre first postulated the Big Bang. Most scientists believe that the universe came from nothing. You can't get an entire universe from nothing. Also, TS's quantum vacuum is NOT nothing. We Christians, can also look at the fine tuning and the intelligent design arguments and understand that God is behind the universe.
Once again, you misunderstand what "God is all powerful" means. No philosopher says that "God has ALL the power."Waco1947 said:
In addition, you are ignoring that such a claim "God is all powerful" means God has ALL the power yet we human have some of the power. Those two statement are logically consistent that you yet to address.
It means, " to recognize that there is nothing outside of His ability to accomplish and no one who can exercise power over Him."
Please revert back to your philosophy that you should have received in seminary.
Waco1947 said:"The presence of creation reflects that God is all powerful." You have no basis for this assertion other than the Bible. But the Bible is not science.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:You keep dodging. Please answer.Nice job on the translation but a theodicy based on God is love and God is all powerful is doomed to fail logically and philosophically. One cannot hold those two notions in any kind of dynamic tension.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:Nice job on the translation but a theodicy based on God is love and God is all powerful is doomed to fail logically and philosophically. One cannot hold those two notions in any kind of dynamic tension.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I picked up on how to speak '47 so I can translate:Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
Hih? You're just making stuff up. You know I don't believe any of that stuff about Joel Osteen. I know there's suffering in the world I just don't have a theism that blooms. God. You have the sea is the blinds God because your god call Bear is all powerful.
Please strike my "Joel Osteen" comment from the record.
Forgive though, I have ready your post 4 times and still don't understand it.
"Huh? You're just making stuff up. I don't believe any of that stuff about Joel Osteen. I know there's suffering in the world, I just don't have a theism that blames God. You have a theism that blames God because you're God, CokeBear, is all-powerful."
In other words, he just isn't listening to what anyone is saying to him, he just wants to be a broken record.
I do repeat myself but you cannot defend those two assertions as right at the same time.
Just because you are personally too small-minded to grasp something does not mean others cannot or that something isn't logically and philosophically defensible.
I do repeat myself but you cannot defend those two assertions as right at the same time.
All you have is name calling.
You don't like being called "small-minded?" Sorry about that. Let me rephrase. Just because you have come to what you believe is iron clad reasoning does not mean that other people, who have a better understanding of reality than you do, did not sufficiently address your objections centuries ago.
God created us with free will. That includes the free will for us to act in ways that are contrary to God's nature. It does not follow that God must do what you want (take away that free will) just because you do not like the consequences of that free will. It is not necessary for God to eliminate all evil at every instant to be both all powerful and all loving and you repeating it over and over does not change that fact.
For God to be all loving, we necessarily require free will. That same free will creates the possibility of us acting in ways that are contrary to God's nature. We call it sin. The presence of creation reflects that God is all powerful. The presence of sin reflects the reality that God is all loving and the grace of the cross perfectly reflects both of those truths.
In addition, you are ignoring that such a claim "God is all powerful" means God has ALL the power yet we human have some of the power. Those two statement are logically consistent that you yet to address.
The Bible is not necessary for creation to reflect an all powerful God and more than calculus is necessary for a ball to fall when we toss it off the top of a building.
I have not argued that the Bible is "science."
I did, indeed, addressed the claim that God can't be all powerful if we have free will, and will do so again: The veracity of the claim that God is all powerful does not require that God exercise that power in the ways you or I would like him to exercise it at every instant. The fact that we have free will does not mean that God is not all powerful, it only means that, in his power, he allows us to have free will.
NO philosopher? A simple internet search shows that they do and even theologians such as AquinasCoke Bear said:Your bolded quote is NOT true. Christians do not need to look to the Bible for science. It was never intended to be read as such.Waco1947 said:
"The presence of creation reflects that God is all powerful." You have no basis for this assertion other than the Bible. But the Bible is not science.
Christians can look science to see God's handiwork. Fr. Georges Lematre first postulated the Big Bang. Most scientists believe that the universe came from nothing. You can't get an entire universe from nothing. Also, TS's quantum vacuum is NOT nothing. We Christians, can also look at the fine tuning and the intelligent design arguments and understand that God is behind the universe.Once again, you misunderstand what "God is all powerful" means. No philosopher says that "God has ALL the power."Waco1947 said:
In addition, you are ignoring that such a claim "God is all powerful" means God has ALL the power yet we human have some of the power. Those two statement are logically consistent that you yet to address.
It means, " to recognize that there is nothing outside of His ability to accomplish and no one who can exercise power over Him."
Please revert back to your philosophy that you should have received in seminary.
Waco1947 ,la
If someone knows something, does God not know everything?Waco1947 said:NO philosopher? A simple internet search shows that they do and even theologians such as AquinasCoke Bear said:Your bolded quote is NOT true. Christians do not need to look to the Bible for science. It was never intended to be read as such.Waco1947 said:
"The presence of creation reflects that God is all powerful." You have no basis for this assertion other than the Bible. But the Bible is not science.
Christians can look science to see God's handiwork. Fr. Georges Lematre first postulated the Big Bang. Most scientists believe that the universe came from nothing. You can't get an entire universe from nothing. Also, TS's quantum vacuum is NOT nothing. We Christians, can also look at the fine tuning and the intelligent design arguments and understand that God is behind the universe.Once again, you misunderstand what "God is all powerful" means. No philosopher says that "God has ALL the power."Waco1947 said:
In addition, you are ignoring that such a claim "God is all powerful" means God has ALL the power yet we human have some of the power. Those two statement are logically consistent that you yet to address.
It means, " to recognize that there is nothing outside of His ability to accomplish and no one who can exercise power over Him."
Please revert back to your philosophy that you should have received in seminary.
It has been ten days, Waco.Oldbear83 said:Are you contending then, Waco, that Evil is a Creation?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Are you denying that Evil exists?
May I have an answer, please?
Thank him for what? He didn't address the point or answer the question. All he did was reiterate the same misconception that you have of what "created everything" means. Here is the question again: if "good" is something God created, then does that mean everything that is NOT "good" was created by God as well? Isn't that like saying if you build a house, it means you built everything that ISN'T the house as well?Waco1947 said:Thank youquash said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
Btw, "good" is not a created thing - it is God's character. God IS good, and God did not create Himself. But that's another issue. Just answer the question, please.
Why are you avoiding questions? Here's another you haven't answered:
Quote:
Do you believe that empathy, understanding, helping others, mercy, forgiveness, and justice are all GOOD things, and are a part of LOVE?
No answers? If you are so reluctant to affirm whether or not things like empathy, compassion, forgiveness, justice, and mercy are indeed good things, then what does that tell you about your theology, that you lack the confidence to make such a simple, obvious declaration?
You have to paint it that way. Physicalism is your puppet master.TexasScientist said:You want to paint it that way. It's clear that emotion and love are the interactive product of neurological and biochemical activities in the brain. Love for someone is real and physical. It's more 'utter bs" to say that emotion and love comes from some unidentified, unquantified, supernatural force controlling you. That would mean you have no ability to make a decision, and are totally under control of a supernatural being or power. You'll fall in love with who they say. There is where your fiction rests.Doc Holliday said:If physicalism is all there is he must accept that his consciousness and any emotion he's ever felt is a useful fiction driven by neural activity. It quite literally means any love he feels for anyone or anything is complete utter bullsh it and a mechanism used to control him.D. C. Bear said:There is no need evidence for a "supernatural component involved" to accept what is clear on its face. If the material world is all there is then there is no such thing as a "choice," conscious or not.TexasScientist said:That's simply not true. Are you saying a supernatural power makes your choices for you? Choice can be the product of a neurological process. You certainly can't make a choice if your brain is sufficiently impaired. A choice you do make could be a bad choice based upon that impairment. If there is a supernatural component, a bad choice would not be possible. Everything we observe and understand about consciousness indicates it is a biological function. You have no evidence there is a supernatural component involved.D. C. Bear said:TexasScientist said:A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.TexasScientist said:Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.TexasScientist said:It's a biologic function of physics.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.TexasScientist said:.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.Quote:
You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
That's not really addressing the central question in the post you quoted.
If there is nothing beyond the material, nothing anyone does or thinks can be a result of a choice. However, you claim that the ability to choose exists. These two beliefs, which you seem to hold, are incompatible with each other.
Have you considered that there can't be good without evil?quash said:In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
How can we know anything without distinction?
Still quash's point "Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".Doc Holliday said:Have you considered that there can't be good without evil?quash said:In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
How can we know anything without distinction?
Waco1947 ,la
Evil is a condition, not a thing. Come on Waco, we have covered that part already.Waco1947 said:Still quash's point "Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".Doc Holliday said:Have you considered that there can't be good without evil?quash said:In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
How can we know anything without distinction?
God lets us have free will. A byproduct of free will is the ability to turn away from god which produces evil.Waco1947 said:Still quash's point "Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".Doc Holliday said:Have you considered that there can't be good without evil?quash said:In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
How can we know anything without distinction?
Creating reality without free will is also evil. If god created us without free will we would be slaves to him. Could God truly be worshipped/loved if he made beings that have no ability to do otherwise?
did he create darkness or is darkness simply the absence of light?Waco1947 said:Still quash's point "Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".Doc Holliday said:Have you considered that there can't be good without evil?quash said:In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
How can we know anything without distinction?
Waco1947 said:Still quash's point "Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".Doc Holliday said:Have you considered that there can't be good without evil?quash said:In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
How can we know anything without distinction?
Evil is not a created "thing."
Correct.D. C. Bear said:
Evil is not a created "thing."
St Thomas Aquinas stated that "Evil is a privation, or the absence of some good which belongs properly to the nature of the creature."
That view has already been defeated. God IS "good", it is His eternal character, so it existed eternally as God and never was created. Anything that is NOT His character, is NOT good. And since God didn't create Himself, then He didn't create "good". If He didn't create "good", then He didn't create "not good", which is "evil".Waco1947 said:Still quash's point "Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".Doc Holliday said:Have you considered that there can't be good without evil?quash said:In your example you make Waco the builder. Which avoids the point, artlessly.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Do you believe God is "good"? If so, then by logic you must believe that "NOT good" exists as well. Otherwise, "good" doesn't have any meaning, it just means "everything". So just by the nature of the fact that God is "good", does that mean, then, that he created "NOT good"?Waco1947 said:It is logical -- If God is good then where does evil come from. in your theism God created everything. If evil exists then it comes from God's creative hand but in the nature of God as good how can evil possibly come from God. If 80 saved and hundreds of thousands not healed then one has a very fickle God who is supposed be good.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:If God is good then ALL would healed.Coke Bear said:Please explain how 70 different people have been healed with no medical intervention and whose cases were reviewed by an independent medical board made up of believers and unbelievers.Waco1947 said:The evidence against? All those not supernaturally healed.Coke Bear said:Waco1947 said:
"There is no evidence of the supernatural ". This is so right yet evangelicals cannot prove their basic premise - God is supernatural being. Their only argument is "The Bible says so" wjhich is not a source for the real l, scientific world we live in
No evidence of the supernatural EXCEPT for:
The Shroud of Turin
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cactus-fiber Tilma from Dec. 12, 1531
The Miracle of the Sun in Ftima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917
The 70+ miraculous healings at Lourdes, France
The many Eucharistic Miracles that have appeared going back to the 8th century
If ONE miracle has ever presented itself, that alone is evidence of a supernatural.
If you believe in ghosts, spirits, or even demons, that is evidence of a supernatural.
The miracles are simply myths of the RC church
Please explain how someone made the Shroud of Turn when we cannot replicate it with today's technology.
Why?
Your theism is logically absurd.
Illustrated another way: if you build a house, then immediately there is the concept of "inside" the house, and "outside" the house. Does that mean if you build a house, it means you've built the whole "outside" of the house as well? Wouldn't that be logically absurd?
Your God is the builder, and you claim he built everything. Thus the logical conclusion to be drawn from your argument is "Yes, God created everything and everything included evil".
How can we know anything without distinction?
Others are saying the same thing by simply stating that evil is not a created thing, it is a state of being. I'm just laying it out to you syllogistically, because that seems to be your favorite way of presenting arguments to us. Here, I'll lay it out to you in your own format:
Premise #1: God is good; it is His character.
Premise #2: God is eternal, and was not created.
Conclusion: "Good" is eternal and is not created, because God was not created
Premise #1: the above conclusion is true - "Good" is not created.
Premise #2: Anything that is NOT "good" is "evil".
Conclusion: Evil is not created.
Can you refute any of these premises and conclusions?