Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Godlimations. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
All religions
Topic Started: 20 Oct 2009, 09:52 PM (5,193 Views)
Concolor
Member Avatar
Barabbas
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
@ARAZEC: This was the background:
Quote:
 
I believe that my consciousness is linked to the integrity and configuration of my brain, so that when this stops working my conscious experience also stops. I do not KNOW this of course, but that is what I believe to be the most convincing alternative of the one's I've heard so far.
It's just that you said "i asked what YOU really think-not if any of the other you have heard of are convincing..." So I thought you didn't find that part interesting.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

well its just that theres no proof to say that your consciousness ceases to exsist once you die so i was wondering why you beleive it does..
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Concolor
Member Avatar
Barabbas
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
@ARAZEC: Of course there's not. I've never seen 100% conclusive proof of anything in my entire life. And I can't imagine how anything could be.

Evidence on the other hand, is what I try to build my beliefs on. In cases where I have seen a lot of evidence pointing to a coherent picture, I have strong beliefs (gravity, evolution, chemistry etc.). In cases where I have little evidence, my beliefs are more preliminary (what happens when I die?, how do they make twinkies?). But in any case, none of my beliefs are set in stone, and if a sufficient amount of conflicting evidence is presented to me I will modify my beliefs according to conform to this evidence (I call this "learning", like when I learnt about the wave-particle duality of light and matter, or how 'germs' are really different microorganisms and viruses).

The number of potential things that could happen when I die, is infinite. As I don't have the opportunity to do observations or measurement of what happens when I die, I can't find any other evidence to support a given alternative than what is available to me while I am alive.

When I injure my hand, my consciousness does not change. People why suffer brain damage, often experience a lower state of consciousness. To me this is evidence in favor of the hypothesis that my consciousness is dependent on the integrity and configuration of my brain. This supports the notion that if my physical brain is destroyed, my consciousness is destroyed as well.
I have yet to see evidence of the contrary (i.e. that a person looses a large part of the brain without loosing any cognitive ability). So for now, I believe that my consciousness ceases to exist because that is the option I have seen the most evidence in favor of so far.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
conradw
Goliath
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
quick question concolor: is reason supernatural? how about emotion?

I'm still working on an answer to your question?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Concolor
Member Avatar
Barabbas
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Reason and emotion are entirely natural, you can observe them both by the reactions they bring forth in people and other animals, and by doing brain scans to see which areas of the brain are the most active. They are not physical in themselves, but neither is the mail system or Newton's third law of motion.

If you want to hear an in-depth discussion of the example of how logical absolutes are part of the natural world, here's a good link (interesting part starts around 6:30) WARNING: One of the conversationalists in this video does not believe in God.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
conradw
Goliath
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
thanks for the heads up.

See, to answer part of your question then, I don't see God as supernatural. maybe a better word would be transcendent? I suppose you could apply that word to laws of motion as well. I think the word God describes something that is observable, but not itself physical. Transcranial magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes has been found to bring on intense religious experiences (and is related to the hyper-religiosity found in people with Geschwind syndrome) - but I'm sure love has been studied under MRI as well.

I felt it odd that you could apply your definition of the word supernatural to the word 'imaginary' as well. does this indicate some sort of bias?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Concolor
Member Avatar
Barabbas
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
To clarify: You see God as bound by the same laws of logic and physics that everything else that is natural is?
Also, would you say that you believe in a natural, personal God?

For the record, I am of course biased by my world view in every case I examine, but I would actually suggest that you are applying your own bias when you say that the definition could also be used for the word "imaginary". After all, I said:
Quote:
 
To be supernatural, the entity must exist independently of the natural universe and is unbound by the laws in this.
Imaginary things don't exist. Thoughts or ideas about imaginary things may exist in our minds but the things they point to do not exist anywhere.

By equating the two YOU are implying that the supernatural realm is imaginary. I would agree with you, but I do think my definition was fairly neutral. (If you have another definition it would be fun to compare them)

Also, I would count your observation about magnetic stimulation of the brain as an argument AGAINST the existence of a personal God as I see it as pointing more towards the idea of God as being a product of our minds in the same way that love, anger, beauty and plans for opening a coconut are.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

@ay concolor-have you ever experianced some crazy coincidence or something AMAZING ever happen to you that you just for a fraction of a second thought may have been.......... supernaturaly influenced?
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Concolor
Member Avatar
Barabbas
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
@ARAZEC: No, most of the times I thought that something might be supernaturally influenced were really mundane. Like when I was a kid and saw a car with a licence-plate with my initials on it I though it was a sign from somewhere that I should have such a car when I grow up. And I sometimes felt like I had to do certain things in a certain way to appease a panel of observers somewhere. Like when I thought I had to spend less than 3 seconds from sitting on the toilet bowl until I was standing in the shower.

Of course today I don't believe in any of that, but hey when I was a kid I believed in Santa Clause even, so can you blame me for believing in other stuff too?
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

ooohh do u remember the type of car it was?

.......well if i lived in a country that snowed so much i reckon i would take 3 seconds to get in a hot shower after pulling my daks down to go to the loo....... :)



:D :D :D
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Concolor
Member Avatar
Barabbas
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Actually, my initials appear on quite a number of cars. If this was a sign, I was meant to purchase thousands of cars. My holy purpose has yet to be fulfilled.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

shame :(
Quote Post Goto Top
 
conradw
Goliath
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
I don't think God needs to follow logic any more than love itself does.
Here's an interesting question for people in my position though: Would God exist without people? To some, God existed before people, to others God doesn't even exist with people around.

To people in my position its a lot more tricky. Would reason exist without people? would love exist without people...? I'd like to think so, but I can't be too sure.

and to answer your question: I don't think God is bound by the laws of physics because I don't think God is physical - the same way Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars or a plan to open a coconut isn't physical. I could plan a coconut opening machine that involves turning it inside out - clearly breaking the laws of physics.

my point about stimulation is the notion of the divine and the supernatural is itself a very natural and physical process.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Concolor
Member Avatar
Barabbas
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
@conradw: Why do you say that love is not bound by logic or physics? Love cannot make a square circle, love cannot make you fly. Even though love as an emotion has a habit of messing with our rationality, that does not mean it cannot be investigated rationally.

But this is really interesting, as I believe we are coming closer to a point where you and I actually have a difference of opinion (finally!). You seem to view emotions, such as love, and modes of thinking, such as using reason, to have an existence independent of the beings that can feel them or think in those ways. (At least you said "I'd like to think so".) I find this notion a little strange, as I do not prescribe to such a view myself. If these things did, I see no reason why other such things should not occupy that same realm of existence. Did "the Twist" exist before people started dancing it? Did "Puff the Magic Dragon" exist before it was written? Did a fear of Communism exist before Communism was invented?

I don't see any reason to suppose that things like love and reason do exist in such a way, and I'm particularly intrigued by why you seem to WANT them to be. (yes, I'm tacitly accusing you of mixing feelings of how you want things to be into the process of making a view of the world.) As far as it seems to me, everyone has a different experience of love which also changes through time and from situation to situation. When I'm gone, so is my special little way of feeling love.

Is "love" gone if all humans are? Well I cannot see the difference between when a dog rests her head in her owners lap and when I rest my head in a girls lap. In one of those cases I describe it with the emotion "love", why not the other one as well? But I do believe that if there are no sentient beings there will be nothing we could call love. The potential for love as a possibility within the logic and physical laws of this universe would certainly be there, but so is the potential for the macarena and I do not want to describe the macarena as a transcendent entity (but now I'm mixing feelings into it).

Your point about stimulation is also interesting. It demonstrates that a notion of something supernatural can be a consequence of entirely natural processes, making the notion the people had in this experiments a 'false' one. If there are cases where such notions are truly triggered by something supernatural, it would mean that there had to be an interaction between the supernatural and natural world. I do not see how this could happen without leaving tangible evidence pointing to such an event. Why are so many of the claimed supernatural experiences so lacking when it comes to such evidence?

Regarding your comment in the "An interesting paradox"-thread about Dillahunty's rebuttal of the Transcendental argument: Which part are you unimpressed with, the caller's argument or Dillahunty's rebuttal? Also, with the risk of sounding a little too defending on behalf of Matt Dillahunty, I was myself quite impressed with his clarity. You must hang out with people who are a lot more elegant in thought and tongue then what I am, for I have never been able to follow such an advanced argument without falling off before. I would argue that there may be other reasons for the caller not realizing that his argument is flawed and why.

Anyway, how can this God be personal?
Edited by Concolor, 23 Nov 2009, 06:06 PM.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
conradw
Goliath
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
My problem with him was that he couldn't say something like 'its not conceptual, its not physical, its transcendental/fundamental/descriptive'

I was screaming at the screen (well, quietly screaming).

Our beliefs about the world are going to be affected by what we want it to be - its inevitable, observer bias. However, while I might like love to exist if mankind didn't out of some poetic or romantic inclination, I don't suppose that it does, except maybe in the hearts of other forms of life and/or sentience.

and about brain stimulation - might it actually be a Radar for the divine: yours is faulty or unexercised, whereas the Dalai Lama's is kicking into overdrive? If i fiddled with your computer, I might make it play songs really loudly waking you up in the morning, but does that mean it not connecting to the internet as it ought to? Would not a god who designed you design also a means to communicate with you? (I realise i'm being a little facetious, but these are things you maybe haven't to take into account)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Debate · Next Topic »
Add Reply