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R_Daneel
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Where is that “spiritual” reality?
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tonyrey
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tonyrey
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Nowhere! You assume everything is located in time and space. Where is truth? Inside your skull? Where are “you”? In a bunch of atoms?
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tonyrey
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No response!
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redhen
Guest
A theophany, exterior locution, or some event (miracle) where the evidence make’s it harder to believe it’s false rather than true. My wife told me not to hold my breath.
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Hooding_Trees
Guest
I have lost count how many time this error has been pointed out to you…
Again…
"When units of biological material are put together, the properties of the new material are not always additive, or equal to the sum of the properties of the components. Instead, at each level, new properties and rules emerge that cannot be predicted by observations and full knowledge of the lower levels. Such properties are called emergent properties (Novikoff, 1945).
As an example of why the reductionist approach fails, consider the function of one cell within a multicellular organism. Even if we understand the cell’s function, that does not mean we fully understand the organism’s physiology. After all, the activity of each cell is affected by the activity of other cells in the tissues, organs, and organ systems within the organism. The cell is thus no longer in isolation, and its integration into a system provides that system with emergent properties (Novikoff, 1945)."
We are not just but a bunch of atoms…
This reminds me of…
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lemondiesel
Guest
Okay so why was Mary taken to heaven, body and soul? Jesus? why was his body taken? Why not just their souls? Where would the bodies go? Does that mean heaven is a place that contains matter?
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tonyrey
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You are not up to date. I am simply repeating a phrase recently used by an atheist!
You think a quotation explains it all! The great authority has spoken… Credulity unlimited…
N.B. The starting point= units of biological material. No explanation of the urge to survive…N.B. The outcome=a multicellular organism. No explanation of the increase in complexity, organization, consciousness, sensitivity or autonomy. A magical transformation!
You are satisfied with two mystical words: “emergent properties”. Sounds impressive but tells us nothing. Credulity unlimited…
I’m delighted you agree. Nor are we biological machines or animals but persons.…
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tonyrey
Guest
You are obviously unacquainted with the Gospels or Christian belief in the Resurrection. The risen body of Jesus was and is **glorified **- evident from the effects of radioactivity visible on the Shroud of Turin. That is the very reason why He let Himself be crucified rather than become caught up in the vortex of evil and violence - to liberate us from the selfishness and injustice of life in this world.
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Hooding_Trees
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Firstly we are most definitely an animal, that is a fact.You are not up to date. I am simply repeating a phrase recently used by an atheist!
You think a quotation explains it all! The great authority has spoken… Credulity unlimited…
N.B. The outcome=a multicellular organism. No explanation of the increase in complexity, organization, consciousness, sensitivity or autonomy. A magical transformation!
You are satisfied with two mystical words: “emergent properties”. Sounds impressive but tells us nothing. Credulity unlimited…
I’m delighted you agree. Nor are we biological machines or animals but persons.…
Furthermore urge to survive has long since been explained as has complexity and the development of consciousness. You simply are not up to scratch with your science. On top of all that even if none of the above was explain it would still lend no weight to your position that god did it, you simply have a lack of scientific knowledge coupled with a god of the gaps argument. I must say i am disappointed.
Ps, there is nothing mystical about emergent properties, again we see a lack of scientific knowledge.
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tonyrey
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AntiTheist
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To reply to the subject of this thread: obviously, if there is a god who is all-knowing, he knows precisely what evidence would be convincing to me, even if I do not know exactly what that evidence is. If he exists (and is all-powerful, as is usually purported), then he is deliberately witholding the evidence needed to convince me.
Now, if you want me to actually construct a scenario in which there would be evidence of a god, I suppose a scenario like the following would be a good start: the god in question communicates to all people on earth, simultaneoulsy, to each in the primary language spoken by each, verbally and completely unambiguously, announcing his existence; he then proceeds to allow each person a window of a few minutes in which to ask a couple of questions, questions that the person asking does not have knowledge of, and confirm the answers by reference to the world around us.
If that actually happened – and it would be huge, front page news everywhere on earth…it would be the single most important event in human history – I think it would be utterly impossible for a reasonable person to continue to be an atheist. At that point, I would be forced to believe in the existence of this god.
Notice, though, that whether or not I would choose to worship this god is a totally different question – my decision to worship would depend upon the values of this god. Those who would object that such a massive revelation would interfere with man’s “free will” to choose whether or not to worship this god would be wrong: one would still be perfectly free to choose whether or not to worship this being. The only thing that would change is that we would have more information to make that determination (as, obviously, you cannot worship something that you do not think exists).
Frankly, if this god exists and is serious about getting reasonable people to worship him, it’s quite foolish not to enact a scenario of the kind I detailed above. That right there is a strike against him: fools aren’t worthy of worship.
Now, if you want me to actually construct a scenario in which there would be evidence of a god, I suppose a scenario like the following would be a good start: the god in question communicates to all people on earth, simultaneoulsy, to each in the primary language spoken by each, verbally and completely unambiguously, announcing his existence; he then proceeds to allow each person a window of a few minutes in which to ask a couple of questions, questions that the person asking does not have knowledge of, and confirm the answers by reference to the world around us.
If that actually happened – and it would be huge, front page news everywhere on earth…it would be the single most important event in human history – I think it would be utterly impossible for a reasonable person to continue to be an atheist. At that point, I would be forced to believe in the existence of this god.
Notice, though, that whether or not I would choose to worship this god is a totally different question – my decision to worship would depend upon the values of this god. Those who would object that such a massive revelation would interfere with man’s “free will” to choose whether or not to worship this god would be wrong: one would still be perfectly free to choose whether or not to worship this being. The only thing that would change is that we would have more information to make that determination (as, obviously, you cannot worship something that you do not think exists).
Frankly, if this god exists and is serious about getting reasonable people to worship him, it’s quite foolish not to enact a scenario of the kind I detailed above. That right there is a strike against him: fools aren’t worthy of worship.
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Leela
Guest
If Jesus ever actually does return and demonstrates the sorts of magic powers described in the gospels, Christianity will be scientifically true. Otherwise, maybe if the pope could heal amputees? Perhaps if we finally arrived at Mars and found the book of Genesis etched in some Martian rocks? Or simpler, I would be convinced if prayer to Jesus could be demonstrated to be efficacious for healing the sick. I would be convinced if there were any knowledge discovered in the Bible that simply could not have been known by someone living in the first century.
Best,
Leela
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tonyrey
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I suggest you look at the latest evidence for the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin -
metacafe.com/watch/4222339/new_evidence_overturns_shroud_of_turin_carbon_dating/
But, of course, if you reject the teaching of Jesus no amount of evidence will convince you because you have vested interests…
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Leela
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I watched the first bit. What am I supposed to get from this? What is this supposed to be? What is the existence of this shroud supposed to mean to me?
I don’t reject the teachings of Jesus (though we probably disagree about what some of those teachings were and how much we can hope to know about what those teachings were).
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aperture
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I approach this from the perspective of someone who is wavering between Catholicism and atheism, so…
- Urge to survive can be explained through evolution. If two organisms are competing for resources, and one is “hard-wired” to want to survive, and the other does not, then it stands to reason that the organism with the urge to survive will live, and other will not. Basically, organisms that didn’t have the urge to survive didn’t survive. Therefore, all current organisms do have the urge to survive.
- If by “increase in complexity” you are referring to things like the evolution of the eye (or of really any body system), then one reason for this is that complex systems can be seen as multiple simple systems. As in, a primitive light-sensitive spot is just better enough than no sight at all, thus giving an organism with a light spot a leg up in natural selection; then an organism develops something approaching a lens, etc. etc. I’m not sure if this is what you’re referring to, though.
- As far as I know, there hasn’t been a scientific explanation for consciousness. Yes, there are certain chemicals/hormones etc. that have been shown to alter consciousness, but I have never seen a true explanation of how consciousness works. I’m pretty sure this is something of a holy grail (innuendo unintended) in the scientific community, and I’ve heard theories that are based in everything from physics to biology, but I don’t think this has been explained away. However, I would caution against using this as “proof” of God; science has hit roadblocks before, at which point people would inevitably say that this new, unknowable substance (atoms, subatomic particles, quarks, strings, etc.) was “the wall”, and science could proceed no further, and then were proven wrong.
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no_apology
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Atheists,
the mind is categorically different from matter - which means that no combination of matter would produce a rational mind. Take for instance our ability to form concepts of universals, such as triangularity, redness, beauty, justice etc. We could not possibly explain the idea of universals by some PARTICULAR state of the brain, as we would reduce a universal to a particular.
Furthermore, to suggest that we evolved a rational mind for it survival capability is laughable. Our minds are designed for Truth not for survival. Man is a Truth seeker not a survival machine.
God bless.
the mind is categorically different from matter - which means that no combination of matter would produce a rational mind. Take for instance our ability to form concepts of universals, such as triangularity, redness, beauty, justice etc. We could not possibly explain the idea of universals by some PARTICULAR state of the brain, as we would reduce a universal to a particular.
Furthermore, to suggest that we evolved a rational mind for it survival capability is laughable. Our minds are designed for Truth not for survival. Man is a Truth seeker not a survival machine.
God bless.
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aperture
Guest
No possible formation of matter could create a machine that could detect triangularity or redness? I think you know this to be false. There are certainly machines that can detect those things.
I think the idea of universals could be explained as a particular state of the brain. I do not, however, see how this would “reduce a universal to particular.” I think a Polaroid would be a good analogy. Just because you take a picture of a sunset and frame that photograph, that does not mean that you frame the sunset itself. Similarly, thinking about beauty and then linking that thought to a brain state is not the same as reducing beauty itself to that brain state.
I don’t think that wanting truth is incompatible with wanting survival at all. In fact, I’d argue that the man who wanted to know how things worked/how things are had a leg up on his duller competitors. That desire is, I think, bound up in survival capability.
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Hooding_Trees
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Hooding Trees;6496535:
with free will.“We” are “an” animal?! There is something odd there…
We have a physical nature but we are also **persons **
Produce - if you can - the explanation of:
If you cannot then admit you are making a false allegation… and it is you who are not
- The urge to survive.
- The increase in complexity
- The development of consciousness
up to scratch with your science. Bad luck… or rather, poor judgment…
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Your hypothesis that matter-did-it remains without foundation if it lacks scientific evidence - which is not forthcoming. Your disappointment is more appropriately directed at the science-of-the-gaps argument with which you have been brainwashed like so many other credulous people…
There is if there is no detailed content that can be inspected, analysed, verified and falsified because it becomes nothing more than wishful thinking in the mind of materialists who attribute supernatural powers to inanimate particles…
I would love to explain to you but this site forbids the discussion of evolution. Actually i would not love to, the thought to discussing science with someone who is not educated in the sciences holds no appeal to me. I would rather conversate with those members to the community that understand science if its all the same to you.
If you are really at the level where you believe there is no explaination for…
then i suggest you do some more research before you further post on the subject.
- The urge to survive.
- The increase in complexity
- The development of consciousness
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no_apology
Guest
Aperture,
Thank you for your reply. You said:
I don’t entirely get your polaroid analogy because i think you might be misunderstanding me with regards to universals. Let me see if i can try to explain. Take the universal of triangularity. Draw on a piece of paper different triangles. So on this paper you might have drawn scalene, isosceles, big, small, or misshapen triangles. All those are particular triangles. But here is my question to you. How do you recognize, that all those shapes are triangles? That they all have the form of triangularity? The reason is that your mind can grasp the concept of triangularity, or if you want a concept of a perfect triangle. Now this perfect/universal triangle exists no where in the material world, it exists only in the mind of rational animals. Only particular triangles exist in the material world. This is why a universal could not possibly be explained by a particular state or configuration of brain matter.
You also said that:
I don’t think that wanting truth is incompatible with wanting survival at all. In fact, I’d argue that the man who wanted to know how things worked/how things are had a leg up on his duller competitors. That desire is, I think, bound up in survival capability.
This has nothing to do with the desire/want of truth or survival. But, ultimately what our minds are designed for. Let me ask you a question. Do you think Truth = Survival?
Obviously Truth has nothing to do with survival.
Therefore to say that our minds/brains were designed for the propagation of our selfish genes undermines Truth. This is why i believe and many others, that materialism is a self-refuting philosophy.
Here is also an interesting quote from the evolutionary biologist Haldane:
“If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
God Bless
Thank you for your reply. You said:
What machines form concepts of universals???
I don’t entirely get your polaroid analogy because i think you might be misunderstanding me with regards to universals. Let me see if i can try to explain. Take the universal of triangularity. Draw on a piece of paper different triangles. So on this paper you might have drawn scalene, isosceles, big, small, or misshapen triangles. All those are particular triangles. But here is my question to you. How do you recognize, that all those shapes are triangles? That they all have the form of triangularity? The reason is that your mind can grasp the concept of triangularity, or if you want a concept of a perfect triangle. Now this perfect/universal triangle exists no where in the material world, it exists only in the mind of rational animals. Only particular triangles exist in the material world. This is why a universal could not possibly be explained by a particular state or configuration of brain matter.
You also said that:
I don’t think that wanting truth is incompatible with wanting survival at all. In fact, I’d argue that the man who wanted to know how things worked/how things are had a leg up on his duller competitors. That desire is, I think, bound up in survival capability.
This has nothing to do with the desire/want of truth or survival. But, ultimately what our minds are designed for. Let me ask you a question. Do you think Truth = Survival?
Obviously Truth has nothing to do with survival.
Therefore to say that our minds/brains were designed for the propagation of our selfish genes undermines Truth. This is why i believe and many others, that materialism is a self-refuting philosophy.
Here is also an interesting quote from the evolutionary biologist Haldane:
“If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
God Bless
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