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Bradski
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Our mugs have value.
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ThinkingSapien
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It achieves the purpose for which I’ve placed it there. But we’ve had a conversation on this before. When you last brought attention to it I referred you to a thread in which we had both participated in which I stated why I placed that it there.I agree. Not sure that “software engineer” is a particularly helpful label.
Could you be more specific without using that particular label?
The wording of your question is a bit odd. Given a person that claims no level of confidence on the God proposition if you were to ask the person “Are you sure God exists?” the person might answer “No.” But if you were to ask the person “Are you sure God does not exists?” the person could still answer no. While these interactions seem to yield identical information I suspect that some number of people looking at the interaction might be inclined to think the person being asked the question leads towards feeling that there’s no God for the question “Are you sure God does not exists.” I’d suggest asking someone for their thoughts about God and their confidence in those thoughts and see what they have to say. This approach might expose information you might not notice otherwise. There are people whose god-concept is a non-person non-sentient entity. Such a person might assert that God does exist. But their god-concept may be radically unlike (and incompatible) those of another.
All that is an aside. As for the question that you are asking about my disposition to the God proposition I couldn’t tell you if it’s true or if its false. My feelings on the matter might border on apathetic. The confidence qualifiers “sure” and “unsure” don’t seem applicable here. I do find the content of many religions interesting though. I’ve found that knowledge of them assist in understanding some of the things that I see reported in the news or in understanding the expressed thoughts and feelings of friends, coworkers, and associates.
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Charlemagne_III
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When I was an atheist I know that the Christian approach to me that was best was to rightly assume that I had no capacity for faith without evidence, and that no amount of evidence was going to convince me at that time because of the hardness of my heart toward Christ. The best approach to me at that time (according to the priest who encountered me) was to leave me alone to stew in my own juices. Which I certainly did. He was right, of course. In two years time I had stewed in my juices long enough to want to go back and encounter the priest again, this time with the far better result of my conversion.
So having lived now for many years on both sides of the great divide, I think I am entitled to my opinion (which may be wrong) just as you are entitled to your opinion, which may be just as wrong.
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CHRISTINE77
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Well that’s about as clear as mud!
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ThinkingSapien
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It may be a position that you are not familiar with. I find greater value in someone having the knowledge that they don’t understand my position then a person having a misunderstanding of my position. But if you are curious check out the link in the previous message.
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CHRISTINE77
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In my book apathy is even more absurd than atheism. It also seems dishonest. Why are you on a theistic forum if you have not interest in God?
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ThinkingSapien
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See last couple of sentences of #146. There have also been many discussions here on words, etymology, semantics, and logic that I quite enjoy.
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CHRISTINE77
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Yes but if God or no God has no interest to you in your life, why would you debate with theists? It seems like you would be on a science forum or a news forum. Seems like you are actually quite interested in God.
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Charlemagne_III
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This is true. Even when I was an atheist, I could get God out of my heart, but I could not get God out of my mind. God is an obsession both with theists and atheists, all the more proof that God designed us all to be obsessed with him one way or the other.
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Pallas_Athene
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The answer is simple, at least for me. I am interested in the thought process that Christians apply. Not what they say (because I have been there), but the way they try to defend what they say. That is a fascinating subject.
Many, many decades ago, when I first read “1984”, and read about the concept of “doublethink”, I rejected the idea. I could not imagine how can people uphold two contradictory concepts at the same time, and believe both of them. I still cannot fully comprehend it after decades of talking to believers of different kinds. But somehow they can, without going insane. Amazing.
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ThinkingSapien
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I find enjoyment in being exposed to new ideas or perspectives and sharing my own ideas and perspectives with others. Not that this is unique to me. That may be a part of being social. Reviewing my own interactions in this thread I’m not sure "debate"characterizes them well. It’s rare that I tell someone that I think they are wrong about something. I do make statements indicating that something said isn’t necessarily applicable to all members of some category (stating something isn’t necessarily true) share some other explanations to consider. What a person has said before may still have applicability to some within a category.
If you take a look at my contributions to this thread (or expand them beyond this thread if you like) you’ll notice I don’t say anything to try to argue that a certain god-concept is true or false. When a theory of mind is presented that fails to explain a behaviour I may offer another that may account for a behaviour. If I think there’s another set of semantics that some might be using with a declaration I share those. Semantics play a significant role in the Philosophy sub-forum; you might recall that in one of the last times that we had a continued discussion we spent some time clarifying how we were using the words “legal”, “moral”, and “fraudulent” and whether these were synonymous.
This isn’t an approach that is exclusive to me interactions within this forum. Information flows in both directions. I have been in face-to-face conversations in which someone believes that a Catholic is taking an inconsistent stance on birth control by paying for insurance for viagra but not birth control pills. From my interactions here and elsewhere I’ve been able to share what’s behind a stance and why it doesn’t have the inconsistency that the person thinks that it does.
I do this with lots of people. My sister, class mates from my college days, coworkers, colleagues. We’ll pick apart what one of the other says and test it for internal consistency, applicability, and other things. We find this enjoyable. It’s not necessarily on religious topics, and the people in the above mentioned groups are not necessarily theist.
I am.
I’m interested in people, I’m interested in politics, I’m interested in sociology, I’m interested in history, I’m interested in psychology, I’m interested in language and words. Religion intersects some of these. I’m watching a Ric Burns (sone of Kin Burns) documentary on the Pilgrims on PBS right now. Within the first few minutes there’s talk of religious dispositions. There’s several domains of human interactions that are imbued with the religions and ideologies of the people involved.
You might like the book “Why God Won’t Go Away” by Andrew Newberg.
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CHRISTINE77
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Well there must be other places your could go to express your interest in people. It sounds to me like you are interested in people who believe in God. Your Christian God.
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Charlemagne_III
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Have you read it?
If so, do the authors take the view that God is a delusional notion with beneficial evolutionary side effects?
What is the main conclusion the authors draw?
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ThinkingSapien
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There are other places I do go!
Christian, Hindu, and a few others.
Well I don’t claim ownership of any specific god-concept. Among my friends I’m known to use OYG from time to time.
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tonyrey
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Our mugs are valuable because they have been designed for the purpose of drinking
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tonyrey
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Even if people don’t know mugs are for they are still intrinsically valuable. It’s not the mug’s fault (or the designer’s or the maker’s or the seller’s) that some one is unaware of its purpose. Ignorance isn’t always bliss; sometimes it imposes limits on us that don’t exist. The worst limitation of all is surely not to know why **we **exist…
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tonyrey
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Then they’re illogical and often depressed. Of course it depends on what type of theist they are. A vague belief in God has no effect on daily life.
“feel” is the key word. I had a friend who killed herself because she felt everyone had rejected her.
Another key word! “often” implies “not always”.
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If persons are purposeful it seems unlikely they’re all deceiving themselves.
I think you are.
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Charlemagne_III
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Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, the two most famous French atheists of the 20th century, were famous for their recognition that atheism promotes an absurdist philosophy of life. Both of them recognized the question of suicide as the essential issue of a meaningless life. Camus never got to live out his life, having died in an automobile accident, but Sartre recanted his atheism months before he died.
This fact of history is forgotten by many modern atheists, who like to pretend atheism is a positive philosophy. They have lost the courage of their convictions, since you cannot joyfully look forward to a life without ultimate and lasting joy even beyond the grave.
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ThinkingSapien
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Yep, I’ve got a first edition from April 2001 among my other books on the brain.
Delusional Notion - No. Not their view To borrow from the words of the author:
*"A skeptic might suggest that a biological origin to all spiritual longings and experiences, including the universal human yearning to connect with something divine, could be explained as a delusion caused by the chemical misfirings of a bundle of nerve cells.
But SPECT scans suggest another possibility. …] Gene and I further believe that we saw evidence of a neurological process that has evolved to allow us humans to transcend material existence and acknowledge and connect with a deeper, more spiritual part of ourselves perceived of as an absolute, universal reality that connects us to all that is."*
So as you can see above they take the view that evolution is involved, but that it’s not a coincident. But that gets into a prohibited topic here.
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Charlemagne_III
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Since they are scientific minds at work in the modern world, rather than the world of say an Isaac Newton, I’m thinking they can’t bring themselves to utter the possibility that God is directing our need to “connect with a deeper, more spiritual part of ourselves.”
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