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tonyrey
Guest
And organise themselves so that they have hindsight, insight, foresight and the power of self-control?
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NM505StKate
Guest
Daddy’s girl nailed a lot out of the park.
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inocente
Guest
Yes it has. If you prick us, do we not bleed? Blood is made of molecules. Every baby is a molecular structure. And a darned fine one too.
Perhaps what you meant was no scientific experiment has ever demonstrated that anything other than a molecular structure can produce purposeful activity.
But what does this have to do with theism or atheism? From one molecular structure to another, please explicate yourself.
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
So your argument is:
We don’t understand consciousness, therefore God is responsible for it, therefore God exists?
That is transparently a God of the gaps argument, but I’ll take you up on it. If we do discover the chemical and mathematical basis for consciousness, you will abandon theism, right? After all, your argument for his existence will have been concretely invalidated.
I, on the other hand, will accept theism if we fail to find a chemical/mathematical basis for consciousness. Naturally, we’ll need a time limit to decide when failure occurs, and 2035 sounds like a nice conservative limit.
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Aloysium
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Tony, I believe you see what we were talking about on the other thread, a perfect example.
Kappa, we understand consciousness fine. Cain knew full well the basics when he bonked Abel on the head. What more is there but the details? It’s all right here in front of us.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
This is certainly an assertion without proof unless you can get inside the heads of many atheists and speak for them.
Having been an atheist myself, I cannot say I was one of those you describe.
Having ceased to be an atheist, I can say I have been humbled and fulfilled by opening my mind to the justice and mercy of a loving God.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I think tonyrey’s point is demonstrated by the Urey-Miller experiment of 1952 and all subsequent attempts, which failed to prove that molecules left to themselves can produce purposeful activity.
This, you will note, was an intelligently designed experiment.
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ffg
Guest
Heard an interesting life experience last evening at the church mission going on at the parish close to us…
2 guys came to the speaker to inquire about a life in service through religious life.
Both were asked where they came from - one said Atheism.
Curious, the speaker asked him to explain the change.
The man said that he got into a car an Atheist and out a Theist. He said that upon entering the car, he believed nature to be random, but upon driving through the plains and mountains, and miles and miles of beauty, he couldn’t reconcile the beauty and structure with randomness.
So when he got to his destination and stepped out the car he was a theist.
Looking forward to round 2 tonight.
Take care,
mike
2 guys came to the speaker to inquire about a life in service through religious life.
Both were asked where they came from - one said Atheism.
Curious, the speaker asked him to explain the change.
The man said that he got into a car an Atheist and out a Theist. He said that upon entering the car, he believed nature to be random, but upon driving through the plains and mountains, and miles and miles of beauty, he couldn’t reconcile the beauty and structure with randomness.
So when he got to his destination and stepped out the car he was a theist.
Looking forward to round 2 tonight.
Take care,
mike
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
We do? Last time I checked, it was an open question in both scientific and philosophical circles. Perhaps you can take your obvious understanding of consciousness and make a name for yourself in one or both fields. Link me to your publication once it’s out and has settled the issue.
sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150623141911.htm
plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
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Aloysium
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Anything in neurology and neurosurgery will give you a rundown on which parts of the brain do what. I would have to spend a bit more time than I am prepared to do to fill you in on attention and how it is directed, the interaction of peripheral sensors, midbrain structures and the various larger areas of the cortex. There was an article on BBC News a few months ago having to do with a finding that a decrease in the size of a fold in the frontal cortex correlated with the experience of hallucinations. It’s not my field, but it is pretty clear to me that people know what they are doing. At any rate it boils down to nothing more than an accumulation of details related to the same rationally indisputable basic fact that we are made up of a body and a spirit. This is a no-brainer.
The Buddhist in me would suggest that you stop trying to dream about what it is like to be awake and to simply wake up. Easier said than done I suppose. One should try, however.
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DrTaffy
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Compared to all the experiments showing that it is remotely possible for a mind to exist without a physical body (or indeed time or space) let alone for it to create life and consciousness.
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Aloysium
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Do you seriously believe that any experiments on physical matter will reveal what transcends them? The proof of God is everywhere, all about you, right here in this very moment. You must suspect it or you wouldn’t be here. “Proof” is the wrong word, actually; it is a matter of reality. What is at the Core of reality, here and now? The answer isn’t going to be found in ideas, but in the moment. Once you know who you are and why you are (And, how is it that being yourself you would not know that?), it all flows. Chasing random ideas, poorly understood even by their proponents is not going to take you far other than to perhaps give up on the pointless exercise.
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JapaneseKappa
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Sure, people have found lots of interesting details about the brain and our knowledge is increasing every day. But you said that we have a clear picture of what consciousness is, and are just missing some details. That is not the case. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. We’ve made detailed descriptions about a bunch of individual trees, but we don’t yet have a good picture of the forest.
Now you’re not even bothering to make the full God of the Gaps argument and simply making assertions. What I’m hearing is:
It is obvious to Aloysium that we have a supernatural component, therefore we have a supernatural component.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Consciousness is a felt experience. We do not deduce anything about the existence of consciousness. No books have to be written to prove that we are conscious.
Books can be written to show the nexus between mind and matter. But even at the point of the Big Bang all the possible books were published in advance just by the establishment of physical laws that consciousness itself can grasp. The book of nature’s laws is a consciously written book, or it could not be a consciously understood book. Are molecules conscious of themselves? No, but they are intelligently designed to work together through time toward the creation of a self-conscious being who can make sense of molecules.
“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” And again, on a later occasion, Einstein said “… everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a Spirit vastly superior to that of man.” Albert Einstein
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Solmyr
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Is this your “idée fixe”, tony? At least one other thread was submitted with the exact same title as this one… here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=987591&highlight=atheism just last year. (Though I have to admit that the capitalization of the words is different.) And the same applies to your favorite “mindless, purposeless” molecules… is this your obsession?
The funny thing is that someone always takes it seriously, and EXPLAINS the whole concept of emerging attributes… but to no avail. Humans are NOT merely a bag of chemicals, they are NOT just a pile of molecules.
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DrTaffy
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Just pointing out that it is the theistic theories that rely on assumptions that at best have no experimental evidence, and at worst fly in the face of all our experience. Such as minds existing without bodies.
The so called atheist theories are built on the evidence.
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Charlemagne_III
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What evidence is there for atheism?
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Solmyr
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I guess, you don’t see it. Atheism is the default position: WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get. The alternative hypothesis only has legitimacy if you can PROVE, not just “assume” that minds - without body - DO exist. Go ahead, make my day.What evidence is there for atheism?
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Gregory_Olson
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Hey again DaddyGirl, long time no see.
Hmmm, I’m much less eager to argue with atheists today than I was a couple of years ago, and I think that’s definitely a good thing. I had a warped understanding of what evangelization is, and I was doing it for the wrong reasons…
Regarding my saying “I’m not sure what would convince me Christianity is true if I were an atheist:” You’ve probably noticed the internet today has a great deal of atheists. Many of them not only lack belief in any religion but also ridicule religious people. They’ve pretty much utterly deserted any interest in religion as a serious subject–they think of it and themselves help to paint it as an obsolete and oppressive social machine used by the powers that be in history to keep a simpler people in line. “Atheist” is a loaded word–most of the time it’s not just the lack of belief that apologists are up against but this whole antagonistic/dismissive mindset. If I was this kind of atheist, I really am not sure what would convince me Christianity is true. I recognize though that there are atheists and then there are atheists–you for example have spent too much time on CAF to think that Catholics are disabled as critical thinkers, and you know there’s more to Catholic people than credulous simpletons, intellectually dishonest apologists, and power-hungry clergymen…
Regarding the evidence/arguments that convinced me: transitioning from a more or less cultural Catholic to–well, I’m still struggling, but I’m better off now than I was five years ago… What’s important for here is that I’m more open-minded about belief today; I choose more freely and with better understanding to be Catholic than I did at 15. Anyway, for me this was a years-long process. There was lots of reading and critical thought involved, yes–I could recommend you books–but also I really am convinced, as you mentioned, that there are qualities certain Christ-like people I’ve encountered have that no one else in my experience has. I’m aware this is an unfair argument to make with an atheist, but I’m being honest–I think given time, and in spite of all our flaws, one of the best ‘arguments’ for Christianity is hanging out with dedicated Christians. This makes sense from a Christian perspective–one of the best ways to get to know Christ is to get to know the Body of Christ. I guess it also makes sense from an atheist’s perspective–if Christianity is a social/pyschological machine for making converts, the easiest way to be fooled by it is to become close with its followers… The best thing would be to judge for yourself. If you have the time I’d recommend volunteering with a Catholic missionary group, or look up how to get involved at your diocese with Christian groups/workers/retreaters etc.
More fundamentally, the things Catholicism has to say about life, good and bad, what’s important and what isn’t, desire and indifference, and the things that fulfill us and the things that don’t embraces my own experiences. For me the most compelling argument in real life is the argument from desire.
Almost every conversion story I’ve read is a years-long development, though. There’s no lab data on Christianity I can hand you. Christianity is people-centered, and people are more likely to become Christian through a study of people or themselves rather than the natural world.
The most convincing ‘right now’ evidence/argument I can hand you just while talking on CAF is probably this:
anthonyflood.com/sadowskyendlessregress.htm
It’s flawless, but it’s very vague. It succeeds very well at rationally opening someone up to the idea of the supernatural but little else.
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