What is God?

[s0crates]

Last stab for the night.

I like what John Searle says. When faced with a problem as weighty as this one, "start with what you know for sure." He says we know the following four propositions are true:

"1. Consciousness is real and irreducible.

2. Consciousness is a biological process, caused by the brain.

3. Consciousmess is located in the brain.

4. Consciousness functions causally. "

I think any adequate "naturalistic" theory has to give a satisfactory account of these 4 propositions.

What I have dubbed "scientific materialism" has so far failed to give such an account (and seems to me must inevitably fail to do so because it inherited an error tracing back to Descartes, that reality is composed entirely of material substance in the Cartesian sense: blind, purposeless matter operating according to mechanical laws).

Some unpacking of 1, 2, & 4:

1. It feels like something to be me. In this case, the seeming so makes it so, because the thing in question is the seeming itself. This was the one thing Descartes got right, the cogito.

2. We know the brain causes consciousness, but we are a long way from explaining how. Think of the failures of artificial intelligence for example.

4. If you doubt this, you can test it. Just move your limbs at will.

[FrFan]

Descartes has a substantialist worldview, which is really Aristotelian, that reality is composed of substances which require nothing but themselves to exist, and these substances have essential properties that make them the kind of substance they are.

After Galileo was sentenced to prison by the church, Descartes relinquished to publish his treaty about world and light.

Most of his writings are criticizing aristotelianism and scholasticism. This era is the beginning of a new science based on astronomy and physics.

Aristotelism considers that the human mind is limited to reason and understanding, while Descartes claimed that we shall not see the universe as it is, but instead he introduced the notions of intelectual intuition and inference (conclusion).

He opposed the notion of reasonable doubt to certainty (Aristotelianism).

In his metaphysical meditations, Descartes pledged to doubt everything in which he believed in, to discover what could be certain, therefore the mind is a substance distinct from the body, a substance whose essence is thinking.

 

Cartesian reasoning is based on the existence of ​​God and not on a supposed justification of his existence.

"God exists because, as a perfect being, if he lacked existence, he would not be perfect. So he is."

I see a syllogism here, he asserts the existence of God by giving him a characteristic from the beginning: perfection.

Descartes goes further when he says: "The very existence of each man does not come from the man himself, since he would have been his own perfect creation, and so he would be God. His existence can therefore only be attributed to God, perfection."

This is very interesting, and leading to a few questions:

How come God being perfect, could create something imperfect ?

If I were perfect, wouldn't I do everything perfectly ?

 

Pierre Bégin said that the principle of God is one that we accept or we reject, that's it. Its existence does not need to be proven. If it is accepted, it expands your mind, If it's not, then we fall into relativism where everyone has his own vision, his own notion of things and everyone is kind of small god with his very personal truth.

 

Léo Ferré (french singer), who in the last years of his life was asked if he believed in the existence of God had answered "I do not know."

Isn't it pretentious to affirm or deny the existence of God ? If there is a God it should be up to him to choose to be (materialize) or not. If we decide that he lives we can seek for him. If we decide there is no god we can ignore him.Aren't we free of thinking ?

 

"Those who seek God are interesting me, even those who ignore him. Those who found him had me worried."

 

Always interesting to talk some philosophy and the very sensitive subject of God with you guys, and particularly with s0crates. Judging by your screen name and posts you must be fond of φ, aren't you ?

[s0crates]

FrFan-

Thanks for the feedback, and yeah you could say I'm fond of Philosophy.

I think your summary of Descartes is spot on. In many ways he got us out from under the shadow of Aristotle, however he did not escape his influence completely. Descartes' substance metaphysics is basically Aristotelian, and this is something that continues to haunt us today. I mentioned it in the context of what I call "scientific materialism," which is basically the view that what Descartes called "corporeal substance" is all that exists.

As far as the Cartesian proof of a God's existence, I have to admit I feel the force of it. I'd explain it as follows:

1. God is the sum of all perfections (by definition).

2. Existence is a perfection.

3. Therefore God exists.

Or alternatively;

1. God is perfect (by definition).

2. If something is perfect, then there is nothing better than it.

3. Therefore nothing is better than God.

4. It is better to exist than not to exist.

5. Therefore God exists.

The ontological proof is one of those arguments that haunts me. I sometimes find myself thinking "maybe it does work!" Ultimately though I think Kant's diagnosis is correct, existence is not a predicate.

And I agree it is "pretentious to affirm or deny the existence is God." This is a point I have been repeating. Dawkins and his ilk have no shame.

[s0crates]

http://youtu.be/YKPqdFZtZE0

[Burgold]

I kind of agree. It seems that the proper place for the pure scientist is agnosticism. Doubt that there is a God, but not conclusion, because you can't prove or disprove it. We lack the means to perform such a study or even really know what data can be observed.

 

Now, we can look at the historical record, the archaeological and geological data and say... does this mesh? Is it reasonable? We can then see that there does seem to be a record of a great flood. That's not determinative though. We might even be able to discover whether there was a period of plague leading to mass death around the time of Moses.

 

Walking on water's no trick. I do it every winter. If you can walk on ice you can walk on water.

 

None of these really though goes to the reality of proving or disproving whether the world or existence was created by some kind of consciousness. What happened before the Big Bang? If there is a God what created God or existed before him and all the other classic questions.

 

Therefore, the question remains open.  Atheism is then a philosophical position and not a scientific one. The scientist bases his conclusions on data and doesn't declare a result until the findings are significant. The caution of the scientist in making declarations of proof in one worth following.

 

Heck, supposedly even Jesus had his doubts.

[MEANDWARF]

Revelation 1:8

8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

 

Read the Happy Sunday Thread.  

[alexey]

I'd say it follows that reality is not blind and purposeless. One well wonders how the purposeless stuff can result in the purposeful stuff.

Most of the interesting work has to do with this basic issue. I think it is one of the key intellectual questions of modernity, up to the present day. A variety of theories try to answer it, most fail (e.g. behaviorism, functionalism).

Do you mean "intentional" when you say "purposeful"?

1. Drop of water falling from the sky to join the ocean.

2. Ant leaving a colony to find food.

3. Cow going to the meadow to eat some grass.

4. Alexey going to a grocery store to buy milk.

If intentionality is the question, then: 1, 2 are not purposeful, 3 - you tell me. 4 is clearly purposeful. Which of these is the key intellectual question of modernity?

Once again, I think the root of the problem is Cartesian intellectual baggage.

It is not that there is no account, it is that the account fails. Behaviorism, for example, was a catastrophic failure in its account of volitional consciousness. It didn't even get up to the level of being wrong.

Neurobiology is the discipline to explore if you are interested in consciousness. Highty recommended:

http://brainsciencepodcast.com/

Yeah you're right about the trend in usage of these words. I hear this equivocation of "atheism" and "agnosticism" all the time in my freshman classes. I don't know where it came from, but it it is quite irksome.

(theism) = (belief in god)

(a)(theism) = (lack of)(belief in god)

People with no religious affiliation and no belief in god are increasingly calling themselves "atheists". This usage of the word is here to stay.

If "agnostic" and "atheist" are to mean the same thing, then what will we call what we used to call an atheist?

It is best to call people whatever they call themselves while ensuring that you understand what they mean

There are many interesting distinctions and ideas around this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Implicit_vs._explicit

"As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Positive_vs._negative

"Philosophers such as Antony Flew[45] and Michael Martin[40] have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. The terms weak and strong are relatively recent, while the terms negative and positive atheism are of older origin, having been used (in slightly different ways) in the philosophical literature[45] and in Catholic apologetics.[46] Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as negative atheists."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Definition_as_impossible_or_impermanent

"Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so universally accepted in the western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism—the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are simply in denial."

It's not indeterminism that is required but self-determinism. The key question (to avoid the compatibilist evasion) is this: Do I make myself in any meaningful way?

I make myself in a way that is meaningful to me.

This illusion, if it is one, is an illusion that is pervasive and seemingly impossible to do without. Consider:

1. Free will is inevitably presupposed in practice. When you have to make a decision, such as paper or plastic, you cannot just say, "I'm a determinist. Que sera sera." For you to even imagine doing that is only intelligible to you as a volitional act.

I am a determinist. I do not presuppose in practice the indeterministic kind of free will you are talking about. I get by just fine. I make choices with my brain just like you do. I have the same kind of free will that you do. I usually choose paper. Speaking of that, I should bring my own bags more often.

2. Think of the enormous amount of resources we devote to rational decision making. We spend so many calories maintaining this volitional consciousness. We spend years teaching our children how to deliberate. If free will is an illusion, then it seems like we waste a lot of resources maintaining the illusion. Do we find such waste elsewhere in biology, expensive biological processes that have no effect on the organism?

I am sorry that you cannot have the indeterministic kind of free will you want. If determinism is true, hopefully you will still decide to get out of bed and have breakfast.

3. Perhaps most importantly, free will is required for moral responsibility. That is: Ought implies can.

Many smart people explored the intersection of moral responsibility and determinism. Their work may or may not satisfy you.

Then again, if you would start raping and murdering in case determinism is true, maybe you should stay in bed after all

I like what John Searle says. When faced with a problem as weighty as this one, "start with what you know for sure." He says we know the following four propositions are true:

"1. Consciousness is real and irreducible.

2. Consciousness is a biological process, caused by the brain.

3. Consciousmess is located in the brain.

4. Consciousness functions causally. "

...

Empirically, we know that 1 is probably false and 2-4 are true.

http://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/2010/1/13/affective-neuroscience-with-jaak-panksepp-bsp-65.html

I might offer a tentative definition such as the following, God is the unifying principle of nature.

There must be more to it, unless you would be willing to accept that god could be a mathematical formula.

In this lecture called "God is not a Good Theory," Sean Carroll groups definitions of god into 3 categories:

Passive, Active, Emergent

[s0crates]

Do you mean "intentional" when you say "purposeful"?

Yes, the word "intentional" means "done on purpose."

Which of these is the key intellectual question of modernity?

It's a more general question, of which the free will problem is just a single aspect. The general question is roughly this: How do we get an account of ourselves (as conscious, rational, deliberative beings) that is consistent with our account of the rest of nature (as composed entirely of blind, purposeless matter operating according to mechanical laws)?

This basic question of our time manifests itself in a variety of more specific questions: Why don't we have laws of sociology and history the way we have laws of physics? What sort of illness is a mental illness, is it the same as a physical illness? What sort of science is a soft science, like anthropology? Is it in principle the same kind of thing as a hard science, like physics? Why can't computers write good poetry?

The free will problem is another such question, a subsidiary of the basic question, the mind-body problem.

Neurobiology is the discipline to explore if you are interested in consciousness. Highty recommended:

http://brainsciencepodcast.com/

I doubt it will answer my question, barring a radical change in strategy on the part of the neurobiologists (incidentally, I think some people in the field are coming to realize this, hence the increasing number of non-reductionist accounts, like emergence theory).

Humans throughout the ages have had essentially the same genotype (or neurobiology), yet the phenotype of consciousness varies greatly. If the brain alone were enough to explain history and culture, we wouldn't find such a variety of mental experiences. For example, a nomadic hunter-gatherer has a much different mental life than me, but he has the same kind of brain. So understanding only the brain will not be enough to account for the difference between him and I.

Sociobiology marks another failed attempt (in a long line of failed attempts, like behaviorism and functionalism) to solve the basic problem of our intellectual era.

(theism) = (belief in god)

(a)(theism) = (lack of)(belief in god)

People with no religious affiliation and no belief in god are increasingly calling themselves "atheists". This usage of the word is here to stay.

It is best to call people whatever they call themselves while ensuring that you understand what they mean

You are mincing words. A-Theos means no-God. If you affirm the proposition "there is no God," then you are an atheist. Otherwise you're not.

Now I do notice most self-styled atheists walk that dog back to agnosticism (as you have done), but atheism and agnosticism are nonetheless distinct concepts. The distinction does not dissolve on account of the atheist's hypocrisy.

I make myself in a way that is meaningful to me.

Not if determinism is true.

I am a determinist. I do not presuppose in practice the indeterministic kind of free will you are talking about.

Who said anything about indeterminism? That's just randomness. I'm talking about the irreducible fact of volitional consciousness

Are you telling me you, unlike every other healthy adult human being, do not deliberate and decide?

I am sorry that you cannot have the indeterministic kind of free will you want. If determinism is true, hopefully you will still decide to get out of bed and have breakfast.

Typical compatibilist evasion. How do I decide to get out of bed and have breakfast if determinism is true? A decision has to be up to me to qualify as such.

Many smart people explored the intersection of moral responsibility and determinism. Their work may or may not satisfy you.

Let me make the argument explicit:

1. If determinism is true, then it is not up to us what we do.

2. If it is not up to us what we do, then we cannot be held responsible for what we do.

3. Therefore, if determinism is true, then we cannot be help responsible for what we do.

4. But we can be held responsible for what we do.

5. Therefore determinism is false.

Which premise do you deny?

Before you answer, consider for example how the Ethan Couch "affluenza" defense worked. It was basically the determinism defense. Didn't his lawyer basically say he was the inevitable product of his nature and nurturing, and therefore he could not be held responsible? This is just another manifestation of the central problem.

Empirically, we know that 1 is probably false and 2-4 are true.

Re: Your denial of proposition 1, "consciousness is real and irreducible":

I always knew people with your worldview deny the obvious fact that "consciousness is real and irreducible," which is to say they deny that it feels like something to be conscious, however most people aren't so bold as to deny it explicitly.

Would you really tell me I am not a conscious being? If so, I've immediately refuted you to my own satisfaction by the very fact of my own existence. I'm a conscious entity. That is an irreducible, stubborn, brute fact. If you deny it, then you are plainly mistaken.

Re: You're affirmation of proposition #4, "consciousness functions causally":

If you affirm this, then you are not a determinist. Determinism is simply the denial that consciousness functions causally (which is to say, roughly, my mind moves my body, and vice versa).

In sum, and frankly speaking, what I have dubbed the "scientific materialist" worldview, the view that the universe is made entirely of blind purposeless matter operating according to mechanical laws, is so absurd, has such implausible implications, it is really hard to see how anybody takes it seriously.

This is scientific pretense at its worst. This type of scientist says, "The world consists only of things amenable to my methods." The arrogance!

Imagine it, poetry reduced to particle physics. Please. Is something of the utmost importance not obviously lost?

[s0crates]

Did Carroll really say "a priori reasoning has never taught us anything interesting about the world"?

A spectacular falsehood!

Einstein's theory of relativity begins with thought experiments about the speed of light. Would Carroll say Einstein's method was epistemologically bankrupt because Einstein sat in an armchair?

Does Carroll not think mathematics, the paradigmatic case of abstract reasoning, tells us anything interesting about the world? Number is the language of science!

This guy might be good at something, but it isn't philosophy.

To clarify: I would of course grant that reason without evidence is blind, but I would also insist evidence without reason is impotent.

Edit: My God this Carroll lecture is just one whopper after another. I'll try to post some of my favorites . . .

[alexey]

Did Carroll really say "a priori reasoning has never taught us anything interesting about the world"?

A spectacular falsehood!

Einstein's theory of relativity begins with thought experiments about the speed of light. Would Carroll say Einstein's method was epistemologically bankrupt because Einstein sat in an armchair?

Does Carroll not think mathematics, the paradigmatic case of abstract reasoning, tells us anything interesting about the world? Number is the language of science!

This guy might be good at something, but it isn't philosophy.

To clarify: I would of course grant that reason without evidence is blind, but I would also insist evidence without reason is impotent.

My God this Carroll lecture is just one whopper after another. I'll try to post some of my favorites . . .

He specifically addresses your concern a minute later.

[s0crates]

Carroll's definition of "what makes a good scientific theory" . . . "We know it when we see it."

A fantastic evasion!

This is great. Here's more:

"I'm not a theologian." No kidding?

A law of physics is "not something that needs to be explained." Egad.

"There is nothing about life that cannot be explained by chemistry." Oh really? What about football? How about "the angst of modern man under postindustrial capitalism"? Or Shakespeare's sonnets?

"We cannot explain consciousness yet, but I trust the neurobiologist will figure it out." Now it's good he makes the unavoidable concession that we don't know, but since when do draw inferences from our ignorance?

. . . and therefore God does not exist?

It seems to me a much more obvious inference would be "we do not know."

[alexey]

Yes, the word "intentional" means "done on purpose."

A cow leans over to eat some grass. A person brings a spoonfull of soup to his mouth. How do you think through intentionality in these cases?

It's a more general question, of which the free will problem is just a single aspect. The general question is roughly this: How do we get an account of ourselves (as conscious, rational, deliberative beings) that is consistent with our account of the rest of nature (as composed entirely of blind, purposeless matter operating according to mechanical laws)?

Neurobiology is the study of how purposeless matter brings about consciousness.

This basic question of our time manifests itself in a variety of more specific questions: Why don't we have laws of sociology and history the way we have laws of physics? What sort of illness is a mental illness, is it the same as a physical illness? What sort of science is a soft science, like anthropology? Is it in principle the same kind of thing as a hard science, like physics? Why can't computers write good poetry?

Questions that are interesting to you may not be as interesting to others.

The free will problem is another such question, a subsidiary of the basic question, the mind-body problem.

Many people do not think there is a mind-body problem.

I doubt it will answer my question, barring a radical change in strategy on the part of the neurobiologists (incidentally, I think some people in the field are coming to realize this, hence the increasing number of non-reductionist accounts, like emergence theory).

Answer to a mind-body problem could be: there is no problem.

Humans throughout the ages have had essentially the same genotype (or neurobiology), yet the phenotype of consciousness varies greatly. If the brain alone were enough to explain history and culture, we wouldn't find such a variety of mental experiences. For example, a nomadic hunter-gatherer has a much different mental life than me, but he has the same kind of brain. So understanding only the brain will not be enough to account for the difference between him and I.

These claims require a method for comparing "mental life."

Sociobiology marks another failed attempt (in a long line of failed attempts, like behaviorism and functionalism) to solve the basic problem of our intellectual era.

You consider this to be a basic problem of our intellectual era. Other people may not.

You are mincing words. A-Theos means no-God. If you affirm the proposition "there is no God," then you are an atheist. Otherwise you're not.

Please know that many people who call themselves "atheist" understand the term to mean "lack of belief".

How do I decide to get out of bed and have breakfast if determinism is true?

Reality is what it is. If determinism is true, you deal with that. You can stay in bed if you like. I don't think you will.

1. If determinism is true, then it is not up to us what we do.

...

Which premise do you deny?

This premise assumes that determinism at the very low level (atoms and molecules) has a particular effect at the very high level (us and what we do). How sure are you about this particular effect?

Thought experiment: you wake up tomorrow and pick up a newspaper. Headline says: "Determinism is proven to be true". You check it - it's all true. It is undeniable. Determinism is true for sure. How does your life change?

I always knew people with your worldview deny the obvious fact that "consciousness is real and irreducible," which is to say they deny that it feels like something to be conscious, however most people aren't so bold as to deny it explicitly.

Would you really tell me I am not a conscious being? If so, I've immediately refuted you to my own satisfaction by the very fact of my own existence. I'm a conscious entity. That is an irreducible, stubborn, brute fact. If you deny it, then you are plainly mistaken.

This goes back to the intentionality of cows. Are cows conscious? Why or why not? Let me know how you think about that.

In sum, and frankly speaking, what I have dubbed the "scientific materialist" worldview, the view that the universe is made entirely of blind purposeless matter operating according to mechanical laws, is so absurd, has such implausible implications, it is really hard to see how anybody takes it seriously.

Yet tons of people take it seriously indeed. Make sense of that as you will.

[s0crates]

A cow leans over to eat some grass. A person brings a spoonfull of soup to his mouth. How do you think through intentionality in these cases?

Hard to say. I don't know what it is like to be a cow.

 

Neurobiology is the study of how purposeless matter brings about consciousness.

The discipline presumes matter is purposeless from the start?

That seems to me to beg the question.

 

Questions that are interesting to you may not be as interesting to others.

I'm not going to debate a matter of taste with you, but the plain fact is iterations of my question are being asked throughout academia.

 

Many people do not think there is a mind-body problem.

Answer to a mind-body problem could be: there is no problem.

Obviously nobody thinks there is a problem with reality. The problem is with our explanations of reality.

Now some people think we have explained everything that needs explaining. Those people are wrong.

 

These claim require a method for comparing "mental life."

Exactly.

 

You consider this to be a basic problem of our intellectual era. Other people may not.

This says nothing. Yes people think what they think.

Some have true thoughts. Others don't.

 

Please know that many people who call themselves "atheist" understand the term to mean "lack of belief".

That's your third mob appeal.

 

Reality is what it is. If determinism is true, you deal with that. You can stay in bed if you like. I don't think you will.

I have a hard time seeing how the expression "you can stay in bed if you like" has any meaning if determinism is true.

 

This premise assumes that determinism at the very low level (atoms and molecules) has a particular effect at the very high level (us and what we do). How sure are you about this particular effect?

I have no idea what you're getting at, unless you're trying to concede the point.

Look: Determinism says that every event is brought about by antecedent events in accordance with universal causal laws, such that at any given time, there is only one possible future.

However each of us will report that at any given moment there are alternate possible futures available to us.

Both those ideas cannot be true, but it is very hard to see how we can do without either one. One is presupposed in science, the other is presupposed in practice.

Strange that supposedly skeptical scientists who would deny their own existence for lack of empirical evidence would so willingly worship at the altar of universal causality.

I think a little doubt is in order here.

 

Thought experiment: you wake up tomorrow and pick up a newspaper. Headline says: "Determinism is proven to be true". You check it - it's all true. It is undeniable. Determinism is true for sure. How does your life change?

I don't see the force of the argument. Isn't that what the papers say already?

 

This goes back to the intentionality of cows. Are cows conscious? Why or why not? Let me know how you think about that.

Yes cows are conscious. Why is that an interesting question?

 

Yet tons of people take it seriously indeed. Make sense of that as you will.

That's your fourth mob appeal.

This is starting to sound suspiciously like, "trust us, we're the experts."

[artmonkforHOF]

I don't like to think of a God, more like a cosmic life force that holds us all together, more akin to karma than a deity.

If you look at this from a scientific persepctive, we all are made up of atoms and all atoms come from stars.

That's why when someone starts whining about their God or someone else's God, I just like to yell "Stardust dude. We are all stardust, even the things you hate are made from the same stardust as you. But the hate- that comes from you, not the stardust".

Then everyone thinks I'm crazy and stops talking about their interpretation of God-or which team's side he is on for the big game.

[techboy]

Hard to say. I don't know what it is like to be a cow.

Or a bat?

*Edit 50001* Wow, that was a lot of editing to get correct a joke that like six people might find mildly amusing. I'm checking out again. Geez.

[s0crates]

Or a bat?

*Edit 50001* Wow, that was a lot of editing to get correct a joke that like six people might find mildly amusing. I'm checking out again. Geez.

precisely!

[WVSkinsfan]

I always have felt like if there is a God...I certainly need to earn my miracles...but I also need God to confirm my faith directly.

 

Seems to me God would do that on your first visit to a place of worship.

 

I do have problems with thinking people lived nearly a century in any era. That's simple nonsense.

 

Kosher if you walk up to that alter and get on your knees so god can talk away all your sins I promise you your faith will be confirmed.He will take away that black heart of yours and replace it with a brand new white one with nothing but love in it.You would then have all the faith in God!!!!

[WVSkinsfan]

I can tell you how great our God is!We had a church revival all last week and ended tonight and 16 to 17 souls gave their lives to God.Just think about that now! He saved 16 to 17 souls just in one week.Thats how great my God is..He is always in the saving business and he can save yours to if you just BELIEVE.

[Kosher Ham]

Kosher if you walk up to that alter and get on your knees so god can talk away all your sins I promise you your faith will be confirmed.He will take away that black heart of yours and replace it with a brand new white one with nothing but love in it.You would then have all the faith in God!!!!

 

What makes you think I have a black heart or live as a sinner ? Who/what determines what sin is anyway ?

The God that directs people to murder ? I sure hope not.

Then contradicts that by saying we have free will but shouldn't kill ? We are supposed to follow "the word", right ?

Yet wiped out all these people with a flood ? Seems rather hypocritical to me.

[WVSkinsfan]

What makes you think I have a black heart or live as a sinner ? Who/what determines what sin is anyway ?

The God that directs people to murder ? I sure hope not.

Then contradicts that by saying we have free will but shouldn't kill ? We are supposed to follow "the word", right ?

Yet wiped out all these people with a flood ? Seems rather hypocritical to me.

 

Are you a christian?

[Kosher Ham]

Are you a christian?

 

No, nor am I interested in becoming one.

[WVSkinsfan]

No, nor am I interested in becoming one.

 

Well you will never understand then from where I am coming from.I wasn't putting you down and if you took it that way then I am sorry.

[Kosher Ham]

Well you will never understand then from where I am coming from.I wasn't putting you down and if you took it that way then I am sorry.

 

Not offended at all sir. I hope I did not offend you, that is not my intent.  

The contradictions are part of the problem for me. I have family that are full of faith and all that, it's just not for me.

Thanks though.

[WVSkinsfan]

Not offended at all sir. I hope I did not offend you, that is not my intent.  

The contradictions are part of the problem for me. I have family that are full of faith and all that, it's just not for me.

Thanks though.

 

No problem man,it is your right to live your life any way you want.Thanks for understanding

[alexey]

Hard to say. I don't know what it is like to be a cow.

Do you know what it's like to be a serial killer?

 

The discipline presumes matter is purposeless from the start?

That seems to me to beg the question.

Neurobiology includes the empirical study of consciousness. Just saying. Take it or leave it.

 

However each of us will report that at any given moment there are alternate possible futures available to us.

This is not true.

 

I don't see the force of the argument. Isn't that what the papers say already?

How would your life change if you learned that determinism is true?