Hello

[aileron]

Now I have a question for you…

Outside of your and other’s theory of love,

Name one thing that can be evidenced by any one or all of the senses that produces something that cannot be evidenced by any one or all of the senses.

I’d like to answer, but I find the last part unintelligible. Can you please reword it?

 

[happilycatholic]

Let’s stop right here. If I accept to work with your premise that love defies all reason, then there is nothing to debate – What is debating if not reasoning?

You have set an impossible standard of evidence. Anything I claim as a premise can be summarily dismissed by “defies all reason”. Anything I try to reject in your premises can be trumped by “defies all reason” – after all we are reasoning here, aren’t we? If something defies all reason, what is the point in reasoning about it

You may be right that love defies all reason, but I think you are wrong. No matter who is right, there is nothing to reason about if either party believes that the subject matter can defy all reason.

Whoa, slow your roll a bit. That was a play on words, nothing more. All I meant by that is that sometimes we love without reason. Good grief. Maybe we all should take a break.

Sorry. Can we proceed without this hypersensitivity?

 

[happilycatholic]

I’d like to answer, but I find the last part unintelligible. Can you please reword it?

Sorry, I kind knew my vocabulary was lacking on that one…

Okay, name one thing that I can see, feel, taste, smell, or hear that produces something I cannot see, feel, taste, smell or hear (besides love, as the going atheistic theory on here is that the brain produces love.)

What I want is an example of any other instance of this in exsistance.

 

[aileron]

Whoa, slow your roll a bit. That was a play on words, nothing more. All I meant by that is that sometimes we love without reason. Good grief. Maybe we all should take a break.

Sorry. Can we proceed without this hypersensitivity?

It was not a play on words. They were your exact words – “[love] sometimes defies all reason.”

If we love without reason, you’re introducing the same standard of evidence - impossibly stacked. There is always a reason. It may not be a good reason. It may not be a profitable reason. Is that what you meant?

 

[aileron]

Sorry, I kind knew my vocabulary was lacking on that one…

Okay, name one thing that I can see, feel, taste, smell, or hear that produces something I cannot see, feel, taste, smell or hear (besides love, as the going atheistic theory on here is that the brain produces love.)

What I want is an example of any other instance of this in exsistance.

Before I answer, how does love have fulfill this requirement?

 

[happilycatholic]

It was not a play on words. They were your exact words – “[love] sometimes defies all reason.”

If we love without reason, you’re introducing the same standard of evidence - impossibly stacked. There is always a reason. It may not be a good reason. It may not be a profitable reason. Is that what you meant?

This is the definition I was going for:

the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination

…as opposed to “motivation”. I’m talking about discernment.

 

[happilycatholic]

Before I answer, how does love have fulfill this requirement?

I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

 

[aileron]

I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

I’ll try to elaborate.

Okay, name one thing that I can see, feel, taste, smell, or hear that produces something I cannot see, feel, taste, smell or hear (besides love, as the going atheistic theory on here is that the brain produces love.)

When you write in parenthesis “(besides love…” that seems to indicate that you’re claiming that love meets this requirement and you’re asking for anything else that meets it too. How does love meet the requirement?

In other words, is love the producer or the source in the first sentence dealing with the ability to be sensed? Given that it is one or the other, how does it produce the second part or how does the first part produce it?

 

[josie_L]

What did you not follow in my explanation?

Maybe you need to know that the full title of the Book I quoted from is: Answering The New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God. The book is basically a refutation of his book “The God Delusion”. I think things should be clearer now.

 

[happilycatholic]

Before I answer, how does love have fulfill this requirement?

Are you asking me “how does love fulfill this requirement?”?

If so, it doesn’t. No where in exsistance does something that is detectible by one or all senses produce something indetectible by one or all senses. It’s not possible.

So if the brain can “produce love” then where else in nature does this occur. The physical brain produces physical matter whether it be electrical impulses, chemicals or whatever. The brain is not capable of producing something that is not perceived by the senses. Yet there are those on here who say it does.

Tell me what love smells like. What does love sound like? What does love taste like? What does love look like? Can I hear love?

Even if we produce a drug (like say extacy) which produces the characteristics of “love” such as euphoria, painlessness and inhibition, it’s fake. The moment the drug is gone, “love” is gone.

We can duplicate the characteristics, but we cannot make someone have feelings for another. If the brain produced such a chemical, I doubt we’d have people in prison. And as far as DNA (genes), I think you can’t “breed” love either. That’s simply perposterous.

 

[aileron]

Maybe you need to know that the full title of the Book I quoted from is: Answering The New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God. The book is basically a refutation of his book “The God Delusion”. I think things should be clearer now.

Ok… let me try to distill it to the essence and leave out the mechanics.

It is a straw man because scientists don’t for one second think that it happened the way that book describes it. Whatever Dawkins was talking about, he knows this too and in any case one man doesn’t represent all of any field of science.

By presenting an argument as the opponent’s, but misrepresenting it making it weaker it is a straw man.

As I mentioned, scientists are well aware that random chance cannot produce proteins. But the book pretends as if they are in denial about that. In fact, scientists have a better working hypothesis. The book should have used the better hypothesis scientists do use, not an unreasonable argument that no scientist uses.

This is a tactic all to unfortunately employed by apologist and skeptic alike.

 

[josie_L]

This is a straw man on a whopping scale. I’m not accusing you of it, but rather your source. First, the accusation against Dawkins is really just gratuitous. Who knows the point Dawkins was trying to make.

The larger issue is that scientists are well aware of these issues and have been for a long time. In fact, as far as I can tell no serious evolutionary biologist thinks that proteins got “the right combination by chance”. ** Rather, scientists are working to determine if and how an evolutionary process may have taken place forming organic molecules into proteins. Life is not the only thing that can evolve. The math works for anything that can reproduce and mutate. We already know that non-living things self replicate. There’s a lot we don’t know, but that doesn’t mean the best we’ve got is the apologist’s straw man.**

But I was talking about the beginnings of life, and the astronomical probability (nigh impossible if by chance) of how the first cell came to be constructed (or parts of that cell for that matter).

You’re going to have to explain further, what you said is not clear enough.

 

[happilycatholic]

I’ll try to elaborate.

When you write in parenthesis “(besides love…” that seems to indicate that you’re claiming that love meets this requirement and you’re asking for anything else that meets it too. How does love meet the requirement?

In other words, is love the producer or the source in the first sentence dealing with the ability to be sensed? Given that it is one or the other, how does it produce the second part or how does the first part produce it?

You don’t need the answer to my question to answer my question.

Just tell me, is there anywhere in nature that something I can detect with my senses produces that which I cannot? It’s pretty simple. I just didn’t want you to come back and say, love.

I would think that if the brain (physical) can produce love (not physical) then there must be some other place in nature where this occurs. Is there or is there not?

 

[aileron]

Are you asking me “how does love fulfill this requirement?”?

If so, it doesn’t. No where in exsistance does something that is detectible by one or all senses produce something indetectible by one or all senses. It’s not possible.

I see now. In a larger sense this can be generalized beyond love to the person — that is, how can a material body alone produce perceptions, thoughts, emotions like love, etc; in short, form a person rather than an automaton?

I’ll spare you the slights of hand and give you a direct answer. We don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know. However, this should not lead us to the conclusion that our ignorance requires explanation by way of the supernatural like a soul. We have made that mistake far too often in our past. It just means that scientifically speaking, we have to plead ignorance for now.

 

[happilycatholic]

I’m guessing that my question cannot be answered. The source cannot be discovered nor detected because the source is mysterious. It is God.

If you believe in love then you have no basis to deny God. Neither can be proven.

If you can, prove to me that the source of love comes from anything on earth. But I am confident that no one here can tell me where love comes from anymore than they can tell me what love is. I can apply the same principle to God.

Again why? Because they are One and synonymous with one another.

 

[aileron]

But I was talking about the beginnings of life, and the astronomical probability (nigh impossible if by chance) of how the first cell came to be constructed (or parts of that cell for that matter).

Scientists in no way imagine the first life came about purely by chance. What they are claiming is that an evolutionary process was at work on non-living matter.

It’s really not so much of a stretch. We see non-living things today that replicate. If they mutate, there is a mechanism for evolution to select one variant over another.

 

[aileron]

I’m guessing that my question cannot be answered. The source cannot be discovered nor detected because the source is mysterious. It is God.

If you believe in love then you have no basis to deny God. Neither can be proven.

If you can, prove to me that the source of love comes from anything on earth. But I am confident that no one here can tell me where love comes from anymore than they can tell me what love is. I can apply the same principle to God.

Again why? Because they are One and synonymous with one another.

So you leap from “mysterious” to “God” - by which you mean a particular God humans claim, i.e the one you worship. Why do you and your religion get the benefit from that special pleading? Why are the Hindu’s not entitled to that same right to leap to a conclusion? Are they not entitled to equal treatment?

Why not leap from “mysterious” to “Brahman”? Better yet, why leap at all? Why not keep it at “mysterious” and “don’t know?”

 

[happilycatholic]

So you leap from “mysterious” to “God” - by which you mean a particular God humans claim, i.e the one you worship. Why do you and your religion get the benefit from that special pleading? Why are the Hindu’s not entitled to that same right to leap to a conclusion? Are they not entitled to equal treatment?

Why not leap from “mysterious” to “Brahman”? Better yet, why leap at all? Why not keep it at “mysterious” and “don’t know?”

It’s called choice. I choose to believe. -And I’m pretty sure Hindus get the same choice.

Now that we have that nasty little tit for tat out of the way. Care to take a stab at my challenge?

**Oh, I almost forgot…by “mystery” I was referring to one of the *mysteries of faith *and not the common definition of ‘mystery’. It’s a catholic thing, you wouldn’t get it…or maybe you do, it doesn’t matter.

 

[happilycatholic]

Good Night All. God Bless and Keep You.

~HC

 

[Lokstir]

I still have empathy, morality, love and care for other people. I just don’t believe in god.

You got this from God.

Exactly. You can’t undo the effects of baptism.

I have been an atheist all of my life and was lucky enough never to have been baptized. I still have empathy, morality, love, and care for other people. And I may not be 100% that there is no higher power but I am 100% certain that there is no Yahweh/Jesus whatever you want to call him. And it is ignorant statements like this that have turned me into an antitheist. You have deeply offended me jam and josie to say that I am incapable of love and morality.