From where did all the physical laws come?

[JDaniel]

Well, no-one has ever had a ‘thought’ without a brain, so I don’t have any reason to think they are anything but material.

Again, I ‘assume’ reality is only material because that is all anyone has ever observed. The whole concept of immaterial isn’t coherent anyway, or at least I’ve never seen it described in any way that makes sense.

I agree, no-one knows why reality exists.

Hello, Mellestad:

Walter Reed is renown for having discovered the cause of the spread of malaria. He demonstrated that it was spread by mosquitoes. Now, how would one go about demonstrating that? Who would volunteer to be part of that experiment? Or, did he simply capture some people, tie them down, and enclose them in a net full of malaria bearing mosquitoes?

Another question: what is the future perfect? How does one know that a thousand years from now, we will have had this conversation on a forum on Catholic Answers Forum on this 9th day of March, 2011? Is it because of ‘matter’?

God bless,
jd

 

[mellestad]

Hello, Mellestad:

Walter Reed is renown for having discovered the cause of the spread of malaria. He demonstrated that it was spread by mosquitoes. Now, how would one go about demonstrating that? Who would volunteer to be part of that experiment? Or, did he simply capture some people, tie them down, and enclose them in a net full of malaria bearing mosquitoes?

Another question: what is the future perfect? How does one know that a thousand years from now, we will have had this conversation on a forum on Catholic Answers Forum on this 9th day of March, 2011? Is it because of ‘matter’?

God bless,
jd

This is off the top of my head, I’m not an expert in disease theory

You could draw blood from a healthy person and infect it with mosquito juice and see what happens, malaria infects then breeds inside red blood cells so I imagine you could observe that.

Since other vertebrates can be infected, you could take healthy animals and put infected mosquitoes in with them and see if there is an infection.

Some governments do infect people on purpose, sometimes volunteers, sometimes not. So it is possible to do it that way.

You could have trials with a test and control group, the control group would get pesticides and mosquito netting and the control group wouldn’t, and track infection rates.

Probably other things as well. I imagine a quick Google search would let me know how it was really discovered…yup. So apparently the parasite was noticed in the blood of the infected in 1880 and in 1887 someone discovered that the parasite could infect mosquitoes and in 1897 it was discovered that they could be carriers. So what they did was let a mosquito feed on a malaria infected patient, then four days later they dissected the critter and found the parasite still in it’s gut and it would migrate to the mosquitoes salivary glands, which would infect the next thing it fed on.

cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/
cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/ross.html

Neat stuff!

I don’t understand what you mean by ‘future perfect’? In a thousand years there might not be any record of this conversation, I don’t know. Could you re-phrase what you mean? Are you asking something about time progression?

 

[mellestad]

Lol, I just realized I have no idea how the malaria thing related to dualism, which is what your post was in response to.

Could you elaborate on that for me? I was just happy to learn something new and I never really thought about why you might be asking!

Edit: And after some more browsing, Walter Reed was involved in Yellow Fever, not malaria. As above, I’m not sure where you’re going with this so I’ll hold off on another batch of research.

 

[mellestad]

I can’t help myself. Short version: The research involving yellow fever involved people voluntarily contracting the disease for research purposes, which is pretty darned heroic.

 

[John7]

Well, if someone can demonstrate a thought without a brain then I’ll pay attention to the idea.

Thou shalt not kill
(God)

 

[JDaniel]

This is off the top of my head, I’m not an expert in disease theory

You could draw blood from a healthy person and infect it with mosquito juice and see what happens, malaria infects then breeds inside red blood cells so I imagine you could observe that.

Since other vertebrates can be infected, you could take healthy animals and put infected mosquitoes in with them and see if there is an infection.

Some governments do infect people on purpose, sometimes volunteers, sometimes not. So it is possible to do it that way.

You could have trials with a test and control group, the control group would get pesticides and mosquito netting and the control group wouldn’t, and track infection rates.

Probably other things as well. I imagine a quick Google search would let me know how it was really discovered…yup. So apparently the parasite was noticed in the blood of the infected in 1880 and in 1887 someone discovered that the parasite could infect mosquitoes and in 1897 it was discovered that they could be carriers. So what they did was let a mosquito feed on a malaria infected patient, then four days later they dissected the critter and found the parasite still in it’s gut and it would migrate to the mosquitoes salivary glands, which would infect the next thing it fed on.

cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/
cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/ross.html

Neat stuff!

Mellestad:

Yes it is “neat stuff.” But, you did notice when it was discovered that mosquitoes were carriers, right? Dr. Reed did not have much in the way of modern scientific equipment to rely on to conduct such experiments. In other words, he had to narrow down the playing field, so to speak. And, he did that rather quickly - without kidnapping live subjects. What he relied on was what is called a dialectic. One by one, as fast as he could bring objects into focus, he eliminated such things as palm trees, snow hares, penguins, and numerous other possible carriers - without directly proving that they were, in fact, not carriers. From that preliminary dialectic, he was able to form inductive demonstrations, one by one, thereby narrowing down the possible carriers to perhaps several.

Now, the point is: that such a dialectic-to-formal-logic demonstration is an approved method of arriving at truth(s) without the absolute need for testing and measuring equipment. In fact, Reed intuitively grasped that mosquitoes were most likely the carriers, so, his actual physical experiments were mere confirmations of that. Besides, he was a scientist, and science likes testing and measuring things. However, if that were the only way man could arrive at truth, it’s a wonder that he made it to the 17th century. The scientific method is required in order for an investigation to be called scientific, but, truths may be arrived at by other means. For example, numbers and geometric objects are truths for which no scientific investigation is necessary.

I don’t understand what you mean by ‘future perfect’? In a thousand years there might not be any record of this conversation, I don’t know. Could you re-phrase what you mean? Are you asking something about time progression?

No. In (most) of our languages, there is a part of speech (grammar) known as the futurum exactum, or future perfect tense. Humans use it in their conversations just about every day, in one form or another, and in regard to various subjects. That I had an idea now is that of which I can say, it is true now and will be true a thousand years from now - whether or not there is a single person alive to remember it. “To say about something that it is now is at the same time to say that it will have been in the future. In this sense, every truth is eternal. - Robert Spaemann, Rationality and Faith in God, pp 635” If that is so, and I would be insane to believe otherwise, then materiality is not the grounding for truth and reality. Truth and materiality must be grounded in something else.

I wonder what that might be?

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Lol, I just realized I have no idea how the malaria thing related to dualism, which is what your post was in response to.

Could you elaborate on that for me? I was just happy to learn something new and I never really thought about why you might be asking!

Edit: And after some more browsing, Walter Reed was involved in Yellow Fever, not malaria. As above, I’m not sure where you’re going with this so I’ll hold off on another batch of research.

Mellestad:

You are correct. They are similar only because they are both transmitted by mosquitoes. Replace the one with the other. Sorry. I didn’t intend to confuse.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

I can’t help myself. Short version: The research involving yellow fever involved people voluntarily contracting the disease for research purposes, which is pretty darned heroic.

Mellestad:

You bet! Would you do it?

God bless,
jd

 

[mellestad]

Thou shalt not kill
(God)

What?

 

[mellestad]

Mellestad:

Yes it is “neat stuff.” But, you did notice when it was discovered that mosquitoes were carriers, right? Dr. Reed did not have much in the way of modern scientific equipment to rely on to conduct such experiments. In other words, he had to narrow down the playing field, so to speak. And, he did that rather quickly - without kidnapping live subjects. What he relied on was what is called a dialectic. One by one, as fast as he could bring objects into focus, he eliminated such things as palm trees, snow hares, penguins, and numerous other possible carriers - without directly proving that they were, in fact, not carriers. From that preliminary dialectic, he was able to form inductive demonstrations, one by one, thereby narrowing down the possible carriers to perhaps several.

Now, the point is: that such a dialectic-to-formal-logic demonstration is an approved method of arriving at truth(s) without the absolute need for testing and measuring equipment. In fact, Reed intuitively grasped that mosquitoes were most likely the carriers, so, his actual physical experiments were mere confirmations of that. Besides, he was a scientist, and science likes testing and measuring things. However, if that were the only way man could arrive at truth, it’s a wonder that he made it to the 17th century. The scientific method is required in order for an investigation to be called scientific, but, truths may be arrived at by other means. For example, numbers and geometric objects are truths for which no scientific investigation is necessary.

I’m having trouble following your actual argument, could you, perhaps, sum it up in clear language? I’m not sure if you are arguing about justified true knowledge, or logical absolutes existing immaterially and then you intend to lead to TAG, or something else…?

JDaniel:

No. In (most) of our languages, there is a part of speech (grammar) known as the futurum exactum, or future perfect tense. Humans use it in their conversations just about every day, in one form or another, and in regard to various subjects. That I had an idea now is that of which I can say, it is true now and will be true a thousand years from now - whether or not there is a single person alive to remember it. “To say about something that it is now is at the same time to say that it will have been in the future. In this sense, every truth is eternal. - Robert Spaemann, Rationality and Faith in God, pp 635” If that is so, and I would be insane to believe otherwise, then materiality is not the grounding for truth and reality. Truth and materiality must be grounded in something else.

I wonder what that might be?

God bless,
jd

No, because our thoughts about something are not the things they reference.

Our thought process is a model of what we perceive and what we call truth is a model of what we perceive that works well enough for us to assume it is always so.

So in that case, yes, what is true now will be true forever and has nothing to do with our minds. Truth would still exist without any minds to observe it.

So again, if we’re just calling truth, ‘that which is real’ then reality is truth and when our model conforms consistently we label it as such.

 

[mellestad]

Mellestad:

You bet! Would you do it?

God bless,
jd

If I was Clara Maass? Sure, she did what she did because the sum of her (name removed by moderator)uts led to that output, so to speak. If I were her, I’d do exactly as she did.

If you dropped me, right now, in that exact situation? No. Most people agree, which is why that case spurred action to eliminate human testing for this sort of thing.

There are plenty of things I’d die for though. People, in general, choose to die for all sorts of reasons, believers and unbelievers of all different sorts. Some we would consider horrible, some noble. The universality of self sacrifice, to me, would point to something rather more basic than to a particular outcome of a particular belief system.

You might have a moral argument if the only people who ever did such things were followers of your particular belief system, but it is not so, and as such we must look to other factors.

 

[JDaniel]

If I was Clara Maass? Sure, she did what she did because the sum of her (name removed by moderator)uts led to that output, so to speak. If I were her, I’d do exactly as she did.

If you dropped me, right now, in that exact situation? No. Most people agree, which is why that case spurred action to eliminate human testing for this sort of thing.

There are plenty of things I’d die for though.

What would you die for? Since there are “plenty of [those] things,” name a few, if you don’t mind.

The universality of self sacrifice, to me, would point to something rather more basic than to a particular outcome of a particular belief system.

Can you point to several examples of self-sacrifice that did not have a God-grounding?

You might have a moral argument if the only people who ever did such things were followers of your particular belief system, but it is not so, and as such we must look to other factors.

Would you say that it’s about equal?

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

I’m having trouble following your actual argument, could you, perhaps, sum it up in clear language? I’m not sure if you are arguing about justified true knowledge, or logical absolutes existing immaterially and then you intend to lead to TAG, or something else…?

Mellestad:

I can’t say it any plainer that I did. BTW, is there such an exigency as “justified true knowledge”? Or, did you mean, “justified true belief”?

No, because our thoughts about something are not the things they reference.

I am not speaking about ‘thoughts’. I am speaking about events, facticals.

Our thought process is a model of what we perceive and what we call truth is a model of what we perceive that works well enough for us to assume it is always so.

So, it is Truth even though it may not work always, but only ‘works well enough’? What does this word, ‘model’, mean to you?

So in that case, yes, what is true now will be true forever and has nothing to do with our minds. Truth would still exist without any minds to observe it.

Such is a factical.

So again, if we’re just calling truth, ‘that which is real’ then reality is truth and when our model conforms consistently we label it as such.

But, remember, the event I spoke of was merely an idea. How is that ‘real’ to the point of conversion to Truth?

God bless,
jd

 

[mellestad]

What would you die for? Since there are “plenty of [those] things,” name a few, if you don’t mind.

The continuation of life(s) I value more highly than my own. On an instinctual, non-intellectual level I’m the same as any human, the lives of my children and mate are lives I would die for without thought. On a more intellectual level there is a cost benefit analysis involved. Would I die to give a random stranger an extra five minutes of life? No. Would I die to save the human race from doom? Yes. There is obviously a sliding scale in between.

Advancement of concepts or ideologies I find valuable. Would I die to prevent a kid from having his lunch money stolen? No. Would I die to prevent the human race existing in perpetual torture? Yes. There is obviously a sliding scale in between.

Any time I value something more than my own life, I would be willing to spend my life for that purpose. Just like anyone else. The difference is probably the value of my own life, since I don’t think I’ve got any other.

On an instinctual level, it is harder to tell. I don’t know if I’d jump in front of a bus to save a particular person, I don’t think that is something a person can know about themselves unless it has happened.

JDaniel:

Can you point to several examples of self-sacrifice that did not have a God-grounding?

Anyone who’s ever died for anything not in the name or religion? Anyone who’s ever died for love of family, country, ideology…? Is this a serious question?

JDaniel:

Would you say that it’s about equal?

God bless,
jd

I wouldn’t say so…I would say the majority of people who’ve died for a cause didn’t have overtly religious intentions. I’d say that the bulk are either related to family, close social groups, national identity or political ideology. A soldier who throws themselves onto a grenade isn’t thinking, “God wants me to throw myself on this grenade”, they’re thinking about protecting their group.

Religion is certainly up there, but only because once those things are out of the way there isn’t much left. The number of cases where religion is the direct cause of self sacrifice is probably limited to martyrdoms, and the Muslim faith seems to have that tradition at least as strongly as the Christian faith. Buddhists have a tradition of self termination as well.

Maybe you could argue for some religious wars, but personally I don’t think religion has been directly responsible for most of that, I see it as just another factor.

On that idea atheism would lose, although they still exist because both in Christianity, Islam and other religions where apostasy has been punishable by death people have still left, and some have died as a result.

Now if you broaden it out and ask how the a particular religion enlarges an individuals social group and then ask about self sacrifice within that group…hmm. Maybe not. I dunno, I’d have to think about that. Although I doubt we’d get to that point since I doubt you agree with the premise, or indeed, anything I’ve said above.

If I had to guess, I’d say your world view is built around virtue being the result of free will conforming to the dictates of your deity, and in my world view virtue is a label we attach to behavior beneficial in an evolutionary sense and self sacrifice can be an incredibly beneficial act for your own progeny and your own social group. I would say I have more evidence for my side since self sacrifice exists without religion. I am, however, perfectly willing to grant that a particular religion might re-enforce that behavior to the benefit of a group. But if you agree to that you agree to religion being no different from any other meme and I doubt that will happen either.

Cheers!

 

[mellestad]

Mellestad:

I can’t say it any plainer that I did. BTW, is there such an exigency as “justified true knowledge”? Or, did you mean, “justified true belief”?

Justified true belief, sorry. If you can’t re-phrase then we’re stuck on that particular concept. No worries.

JDaniel:

I am not speaking about ‘thoughts’. I am speaking about events, facticals.

You’re losing me with language. I don’t know what a factical is.

JDaniel:

So, it is Truth even though it may not work always, but only ‘works well enough’? What does this word, ‘model’, mean to you?

Well that depends on whether or not you’re mixing my terms. Capital t “Truth” exists regardless of our perception. Little t truth is just a label we apply to things. “Truth” exists irregardless of our perception, plain old truth might change as our model changes. For example, the world has always been round, or at least as long as humans have been around. Humans have, at times, considered the truth to be that it was flat according to their model. In reality, the Earth was round, that is the difference between our model and reality.

I think that answers your second question as well.

JDaniel:

Such is a factical.

Again, I don’t know what that means.

JDaniel:

But, remember, the event I spoke of was merely an idea. How is that ‘real’ to the point of conversion to Truth?

God bless,
jd

It is a model, it may be true or it may not be true. The idea exists as a model in the brain of the person thinking about it. Whether or not that idea is ‘true’ is technically unknowable, but if it conforms to our perception we call it true. The idea is ‘real’ in that it exists though, as a pattern of thinking in a brain.

We might all be brains in jars, or we might have been duped into thinking logic works by beings existing in the 15th dimension, who knows. But for the sake of our sanity we stumble forward.

 

[tonyrey]

The brain cannot be responsible for anything, let alone thoughts, because it is a lump of tissue in the skull that functions according to biochemical laws.

Material objects are not morally responsible.

As for the second point, I agree, ‘true’ free will is an illusion. That is a bit simplistic though, since our minds are complex enough that , for the foreseeable future, we might as well act like we have free will.

How could the increased complexity of the brain produce self-control?

But indeed, our physical state is responsible for our behaviors. If I chemically influence a brain, it will behave differently. I can even hit certain parts of your brain with intense magnetic fields and turn partially disable your ability to make moral decisions. Cool stuff!

If our physical state is responsible for all our thoughts and decisions we have no ability to make any decisions whatsoever. They are all made for us already!

There no gaps for the materialist because materialism is one big gap! It explains nothing about the most important facts of life - such as truth, goodness, freedom and love.

I don’t have any problem explaining any of those so I guess I’m confused as to what your claim is?

How do you explain them physically?

Your estimate of probability is worthless because it is based on the assumption that you are a rational being which is contradicted by your assumption that you are merely a biological machine responding to physical stimuli solely in order to survive…

Why? That seems like saying a computer can’t do math because it is just a machine.

A computer is programmed by rational beings but - according to you - we are programmed by blind processes.

What about truth? Is that created by the brain as well?

Depends on what you mean by truth. I would call truth ‘reality’. We interpret reality as best we can, and things that are consistent we label as ‘truth’.

I’m aware that my perceptions may be flawed, and often are, but that is why I try to rely on things like the scientific method to analyze reality. We can’t even know anything ‘100%’ but we can do the best we can.

What are the “things like the scientific method”? Can science analyse itself?

Our conscious thoughts are a product of our brains, if that is what you mean.

Do you mean conscious thoughts are electrical currents?

Truth is a label, not a thing, unless by truth you simply mean reality, in which case it is everywhere and the only question is our ability to perceive it.

Do you believe reality consists only of the thing we can see, hear, taste, smell and touch?

Thoughts seem to be material, and materialism is a thought.

How are thoughts material?

The alternative is that there is an immaterial ‘thing’ called ‘materialism’ that ‘exists’ without ‘existing’ and we, I don’t know, channel it somehow from the immaterial ‘aether’ into our material world using a material/immaterial bridge that seems to be located in our brains. That theory doesn’t explain anything, it just makes an assumption that leads to a lot of questions.

Can you observe theories with your senses?

I’m afraid you’re not entitled to use the term “dishonest” because that is not a material object!

Now you’re just being silly. I’m not disrespecting your views, I’d appreciate the same courtesy.

You don’t understand my point. No disrespect is involved because it is a logical consequence of materialism. How can “dishonest” be explained in terms of matter?

You obviously prefer a random magical (and immaterial!) concept of matter which is ultimately responsible for everything including your ability to derive everything from matter. Hey! You’re going around in circles…

I don’t follow. Could you elaborate on which part of this is magical? And again, the tone isn’t helpful. I can play that game if you want but I’d rather not because it isn’t my style when I’m honestly trying to discuss something.

I’m sorry you think my tone isn’t helpful but I am simply stating another logical consequence of materialism:

1. Everything consists of matter.
2. Therefore all theories consist of matter.
3. Therefore the theory of materialism consists of matter.

Surely matter must have a magical power if it can produce rational beings when it doesn’t know what it is doing!

I am under no illusions that we will explain everything. Indeed, in many discussions I acknowledge that some things, such as why logic exists, or the root of reality might not be knowable due to our perspective. All I can observe is what I can observe, I’m not scared of telling you I don’t know things that might not be possible to know.

Then how do you know reality consists only of material objects?

Christianity is an easy religion, some branches more than others. Trivially easy, if the outcome is eternal reward. I would have no reason not to be a theist. Some theistic ideas are far more difficult to adhere to, but Christianity isn’t one of those.

Do you think it is easy to sacrifice yourself for others? To “take up your cross and follow me”? To try to be perfect “as your heavenly Father is perfect”? To pray for those who persecute you and to lay down your life like Jesus if necessary?

The fact is that now you’re absolutely free to do whatever you like. So you have everything to lose!

Sorry, I don’t follow this. Could you elaborate?

You can decide how you are going to live without having to bother about morality at all. In an amoral universe moral laws are merely human conventions. You have no moral obligations whatsoever apart from those you choose to inflict on yourself!

 

[mellestad]

Material objects are not morally responsible.

That’s just an assumption based on your axiom. They are in my world.

tonyrey:

How could the increased complexity of the brain produce self-control?

A brain without the capacity for self control is at a disadvantage to one with self control, so that would be covered by the general process of evolutuion by natural selection.

Conscious thought seems to be an emergent property of significantly complex brains. Take away enough of a human brain and it goes away. As far as the exact mechanism, we don’t know, it is a very active area of research!

tonyrey:

If our physical state is responsible for all our thoughts and decisions we have no ability to make any decisions whatsoever. They are all made for us already!

If you go deep enough, yes. We are not aware of the atomic state of our brains, but if I introduce the right atoms in the right places I can make you happy, sad, giddy, fall in love, hate someone, fear something, etc. However, our concious mind is the tip of a self regulating feedback loop, and from the perspective of our concious mind we do have free will.

Hence, we act as though we do. But if we want to measure dosage for a drug that will impact the brain, we don’t act as if we have free will, because our perspective changes.

So, at the concious level we can act as though we have free will, but at the material level we don’t. If we ever understood and were able to model the workings of a living brain that might change, but I’m dubious that such a thing will take place.

Having said that, every drug that has a psychological impact moves us further in that direction. I’m not sure how you can reconcile that on a dualistic basis.

tonyrey:

How do you explain them physically?

They are electo-chemical patterns in the brain. Well, freedom is a concept, so it is a complex pattern that we sum up and apply a label to.

tonyrey:

A computer is programmed by rational beings but - according to you - we are programmed by blind processes.

Blind? I suppose. The process has, as far as we know, no objective purpose. It bahaves according to rules though, the subject of which this thread was started in reference to.

Programmed, in this context, wouldn’t be an appropriate word. We’re the result of a process, our output is the result of another process.

tonyrey:

What are the “things like the scientific method”? Can science analyse itself?

Methods of discerning fact from fiction.

If you accept the veracity of our basic perceptions, yes. If you want to go further down the rabbit hole you need philosophy.

tonyrey:

Do you mean conscious thoughts are electrical currents?

Along with chemical and physical states, yes, they seem to be. Take away those things and we lose concsiousness and thought, concscious or otherwise, does not return until they do.

You can claim that thought exists independently, but it is an unfalsifiable claim since there would be no way to verify it and so it is a useless assumption. It is like saying, “every night an immaterial dog hovers over my bed”. You can’t prove me wrong, all you can do is show that, as far as we know, no such thing has ever been detected and so alternate explanations for my perception are more likely.

If someone rejects those alternate methods though (like science) and relies purely on their own perception, you can’t prove otherwise. The downside is that person loses the ability to discern fact from fiction in enormous areas of investigation.

tonyrey:

Do you believe reality consists only of the thing we can see, hear, taste, smell and touch?

No. There are plenty of things we cannot/will not ever sense. However, I have no reason to believe anything non-material exists, or what practical difference it would make if it did since we would never be able to percieve it in any form.

tonyrey:

How are thoughts material?

I think this was explained above. If not, let me know and I’ll go over it again.

tonyrey:

Can you observe theories with your senses?

Interesting question. I suppose you could call our conscious recognition of our own thoughts a sense, so in that way, sure.

If we had the horsepower we could track down the electric firing pattern that takes place when you think of a particular theory, that would be interesting. We probably won’t ever be able to fully track these things though since we can’t track chemical states with the same granularity. Some things you can track with radioactive dyes and x-rays, but that isn’t going to be that granular either.

Otherwise you can observe how well those theories match your observations.

tonyrey:

…tone…

I apologize if that was not your intent. I percieved these statements as, “Checkmate, athiest!”. If that is incorrect, never-mind.

tonyrey:

Then how do you know reality consists only of material objects?

I don’t ‘know’ in a technical, 100% certainty sense. I know in the common usage sense, in that I’ve never seen any evidence to the contrary, and the alternative has less explanatory power.

 

[mellestad]

tonyrey:

Do you think it is easy to sacrifice yourself for others? To “take up your cross and follow me”? To try to be perfect “as your heavenly Father is perfect”? To pray for those who persecute you and to lay down your life like Jesus if necessary?

When the potential reward is eternity? Yes, easy. I doubt I would ever have been in a situation where I was called on to die for my religion, and indeed the vast majority are not.

Is it hard to be a ‘good’ Christian? Yes, many of traditional Christian ideas go against human instinct. Is it hard to be ‘good enough’? No, not even a bit.

tonyrey:

You can decide how you are going to live without having to bother about morality at all. In an amoral universe moral laws are merely human conventions. You have no moral obligations whatsoever apart from those you choose to inflict on yourself!

Yes, I could. So could you. So can anyone, religious or not. You are under no obligation to follow the tenents of your belief. You are under no obligation to believe what you believe. You could convert to Scientology or Mormonism or a religion unique only to you, and then do whatever you want inside or outside of that belief.

 

[PJM]

=mellestad;7630762]Well, it can be responsible in as much as any physical thing causes another physical thing to do something. By this reasoning gravity does not cause water to flow downhill, but that seems like an odd stance to take.

As for the second point, I agree, ‘true’ free will is an illusion. That is a bit simplistic though, since our minds are complex enough that , for the foreseeable future, we might as well act like we have free will.

But indeed, our physical state is responsible for our behaviors. If I chemically influence a brain, it will behave differently. I can even hit certain parts of your brain with intense magnetic fields and turn partially disable your ability to make moral decisions. Cool stuff!

I don’t have any problem explaining any of those so I guess I’m confused as to what your claim is?

Why? That seems like saying a computer can’t do math because it is just a machine.

Depends on what you mean by truth. I would call truth ‘reality’. We interpret reality as best we can, and things that are consistent we label as ‘truth’. I’m aware that my perceptions may be flawed, and often are, but that is why I try to rely on things like the scientific method to analyze reality. We can’t even know anything ‘100%’ but we can do the best we can.

Our conscious thoughts are a product of our brains, if that is what you mean.

As above. Truth is a label, not a thing, unless by truth you simply mean reality, in which case it is everywhere and the only question is our ability to perceive it.

Thoughts seem to be material, and materialism is a thought.

The alternative is that there is an immaterial ‘thing’ called ‘materialism’ that ‘exists’ without ‘existing’ and we, I don’t know, channel it somehow from the immaterial ‘aether’ into our material world using a material/immaterial bridge that seems to be located in our brains. That theory doesn’t explain anything, it just makes an assumption that leads to a lot of questions.

Now you’re just being silly. I’m not disrespecting your views, I’d appreciate the same courtesy.

I don’t follow. Could you elaborate on which part of this is magical? And again, the tone isn’t helpful. I can play that game if you want but I’d rather not because it isn’t my style when I’m honestly trying to discuss something.

I am under no illusions that we will explain everything. Indeed, in many discussions I acknowledge that some things, such as why logic exists, or the root of reality might not be knowable due to our perspective. All I can observe is what I can observe, I’m not scared of telling you I don’t know things that might not be possible to know.

Why? Christianity is an easy religion, some branches more than others. Trivially easy, if the outcome is eternal reward. I would have no reason not to be a theist. Some theistic ideas are far more difficult to adhere to, but Christianity isn’t one of those.

Sorry, I don’t follow this. Could you elaborate?

Within the MANY BILLIONS of Created Things in the Universe; only One: Humanity can caculate; formulate, decide; and LOVE… WHY?

Because only humanity has a Mind; Intellect, FREEWILL and SOUL… al Spiriual Gifts from God.

 

[mellestad]

Within the MANY BILLIONS of Created Things in the Universe; only One: Humanity can caculate; formulate, decide; and LOVE… WHY?

Because only humanity has a Mind; Intellect, FREEWILL and SOUL… al Spiriual Gifts from God.

I don’t agree with your premises. Animals and mechanical constructs can calculate, animals and humans can ‘decide’, and I would imagine many animals are capable of love. That’s an interesting question though, I’ll have to look up and see if anyone has studied non-human animal hormone reactions. It would be interesting to know if animals have a similar child-bonding process!

I don’t know why humanity would be unique in having a mind or intellect, nothing about those two things (that I know of) is different in non-human animals outside of degree. Free will, again, I don’t see what would differ between humans and non-humans. Soul…I dunno, no-one seems to be able to define soul in a meaningful way. I’ve also seen Catholics on this board say animals have souls, they just won’t be made immortal by God, so I’m not sure what the official position is on that.

And then you end with an assertion about everything being a gift from God.

Honest question, I’m dead serious here: Did you think what you wrote would, in any way, interest, motivate or convince me to change my opinion?

I understand you feel passion for your beliefs, it says so in your signature and it comes across in your posts, but I really hope you understand, or learn to understand, that debating an atheist in that way is a waste of effort. I disagree with JDaniel, but we’re communicating, and I value the exchange of ideas. This didn’t seem like an attempt at communication, it seems like an attempt at preaching in my general direction.