Religion Ask a Christian - Continued in Part 2

[Chief]

Continued in Part Two:

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/ask-a-christian-part-2.1295001/unread

 

[Total Power]

See, that's imposition. The reverse of which is a militant athiest imposing "there is no God and you're an idiot for believing in an afterlife ruled by a sky fairy!" on you. I'm agnostic because I can't prove anything but I still reject God. God has no place in my life. I reject the catholic faith I was brought up in. I was baptised into it as a baby completely against my will and had no legal means of consent. I reject it all.

I resent that imposition just as much as a person of faith resents the absolutist "there is no God and all who believe are fools" being imposed on them. Agnosticism critisises neither because both could be right but it's still a godless position to take. It resents imposition and wants it to stop.

It's vital to define what you mean by God as Carl Sagan said once when he was asked if he an atheist or not. Atheism is not consistent with the scientific method, in other words science doesn't prove anything, right or wrong. You have hypothesis which turns into theories which comes with potential falsifications. Almost everything we knew a 100 years ago is now false. Yet the hard problem of consciousness remains but we getting closer.

See Sir Penrose's 'Why consciousness does not compute' article. You will not get the kind of evidence you are looking for with the scientific method as of now, which assumes (without evidence) that consciousness is a product of the brain.

Scientific method is one great way of looking at the world but not the only way. I will probably get attacked again, but i keep telling people use of human body through meditation is another potent way. How the answer still lies in the scope of science and mathematics

I know what you will ask now now, where is consciousness. Science does talk about it, through hypothesis only cause we are decades away from finding out more. If you ask "where do you locate consciousness" . If you read about Penrose's partner's theorem (Hammeroff ) then you will see that [1] ingredients of consciousness [herein labelled "proto-consciousness"] exists outside the mind/brain and [2] microtubules in the neuron "orchestrate and organize" consciousness up a multi-level from quantum to macro brain. Further if one combines other theorems then its the whole body: embedded (with the brain), embodied, enacted (free will) , ecological (interacting with the environment).

Consciousness occurs in all animals -meaning at the primitive level there is "sense datum" which is self organized even in a bacteria for it to know what to do (even if automaton). In higher level animals like a dog: there is a much wider level of reacting to the environment as the dog self organizes datum into percepts (units of perception to which it reacts). With humans we instantaneously also self organize percepts into concepts. Hence we can label a "chair and a dog" and perceive them as different "identities". [See Aristotle's law of identity in metaphysics in my earlier post. Everything has a specific identity].

So now to answer the question directly and briefly: based upon the above is consciousness in the brain or outside? Is it just the brain or is more involved? It appears the concept of consciousness is "Systemic" (systems). However that said consciousness with free will is "Delimited" to man; potent and finite.

None of what i am saying above is coming from me. All are major hypothesis in physics, from Penrose, Hammerhoff and Noble prize winning theoretical phycisist Marcelo Gleiser. All pioneers in their fields.

He does make a very strong case about human understanding of certain mathematical problems that are not possible to solve in an algorithmic fashion.
The solution to the problem might be questionable but the problem he comes up is very concrete.

Worth reading more about it.

About other animals: We mapped the entire nervous system of the c-elegans, all synapses, connections and we haven't got one step closer understanding how it works. Our models don't work. Maybe it is time to listen to Penrose.

Moreover, considering the likeliness that quantum effects are indeed playing a role in photosynthesis, bird navigation, etc, and these effects can be useful in information processing, it is an understatement to say that highly unlikely that evolution has left these mechanisms out of the single most complicated information processing device in the universe that we know of, the human brain.

So when people say, we have little or no evidence of anything outside of what we 'observe', they are wrong. But somehow materialistic evidence is what we are left with and will only be accepted here! for reasons i will never know.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

What do folks think about this Christian?

One religion? I mean, isn't that the logical conclusion if all the other religions are wrong?

Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in US

Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, says ‘These people hate the US constitution’

www.theguardian.com

 

[Evolved1]

What do folks think about this Christian?

One religion? I mean, isn't that the logical conclusion if all the other religions are wrong?

Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in US

Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, says ‘These people hate the US constitution’

www.theguardian.com

It's what Heaven will be like. There won't be a lot of democracy or Islam up in Heaven.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

It's what Heaven will be like. There won't be a lot of democracy or Islam up in Heaven.

Like North Korea but with better food and booze.

 

[Evolved1]

Like North Korea but with better food and booze grape juice.

EFA. Some fundies argue that Jesus turned water into unfermented wine.

Imagine how boring Heaven will be. They'll be up there on a cloud listening to Ken Ham talk about nonsense while sipping on grape juice, wishing they were partaking in a gangbang in Hell.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

EFA. Some fundies argue that Jesus turned water into unfermented wine.

I'd want my money back.

 

[Evolved1]

I'd want my money back.

I wonder if there's an escape clause in the contract once you enter the pearly gates. Lucifer wanted out when he saw how shit life under god was.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

What do folks think about this Christian?

One religion? I mean, isn't that the logical conclusion if all the other religions are wrong?

Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in US

Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, says ‘These people hate the US constitution’

www.theguardian.com

People like Micky Flynn and Josh Mandel worry me. Their vision of the future smells like theocracy.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

People like Micky Flynn and Josh Mandel worry me. Their vision of the future smells like theocracy.

Is it at odds with Christian doctrine?

 

[Evolved1]

Is it at odds with Christian doctrine?

Some Christians argue that an Earth-based theocracy is unbiblical.

"Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” Jn18:36

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Some Christians argue that an Earth-based theocracy is unbiblical.

"Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” Jn18:36

Sure, but if all the other religions are wrong, why tolerate their lies?

 

[Osho]

It's vital to define what you mean by God as Carl Sagan said once when he was asked if he an atheist or not. Atheism is not consistent with the scientific method, in other words science doesn't prove anything, right or wrong. You have hypothesis which turns into theories which comes with potential falsifications. Almost everything we knew a 100 years ago is now false. Yet the hard problem of consciousness remains but we getting closer.

See Sir Penrose's 'Why consciousness does not compute' article. You will not get the kind of evidence you are looking for with the scientific method as of now, which assumes (without evidence) that consciousness is a product of the brain.

Scientific method is one great way of looking at the world but not the only way. I will probably get attacked again, but i keep telling people use of human body through meditation is another potent way. How the answer still lies in the scope of science and mathematics

I know what you will ask now now, where is consciousness. Science does talk about it, through hypothesis only cause we are decades away from finding out more. If you ask "where do you locate consciousness" . If you read about Penrose's partner's theorem (Hammeroff ) then you will see that [1] ingredients of consciousness [herein labelled "proto-consciousness"] exists outside the mind/brain and [2] microtubules in the neuron "orchestrate and organize" consciousness up a multi-level from quantum to macro brain. Further if one combines other theorems then its the whole body: embedded (with the brain), embodied, enacted (free will) , ecological (interacting with the environment).

Consciousness occurs in all animals -meaning at the primitive level there is "sense datum" which is self organized even in a bacteria for it to know what to do (even if automaton). In higher level animals like a dog: there is a much wider level of reacting to the environment as the dog self organizes datum into percepts (units of perception to which it reacts). With humans we instantaneously also self organize percepts into concepts. Hence we can label a "chair and a dog" and perceive them as different "identities". [See Aristotle's law of identity in metaphysics in my earlier post. Everything has a specific identity].

So now to answer the question directly and briefly: based upon the above is consciousness in the brain or outside? Is it just the brain or is more involved? It appears the concept of consciousness is "Systemic" (systems). However that said consciousness with free will is "Delimited" to man; potent and finite.

None of what i am saying above is coming from me. All are major hypothesis in physics, from Penrose, Hammerhoff and Noble prize winning theoretical phycisist Marcelo Gleiser. All pioneers in their fields.

He does make a very strong case about human understanding of certain mathematical problems that are not possible to solve in an algorithmic fashion.
The solution to the problem might be questionable but the problem he comes up is very concrete.

Worth reading more about it.

About other animals: We mapped the entire nervous system of the c-elegans, all synapses, connections and we haven't got one step closer understanding how it works. Our models don't work. Maybe it is time to listen to Penrose.

Moreover, considering the likeliness that quantum effects are indeed playing a role in photosynthesis, bird navigation, etc, and these effects can be useful in information processing, it is an understatement to say that highly unlikely that evolution has left these mechanisms out of the single most complicated information processing device in the universe that we know of, the human brain.

So when people say, we have little or no evidence of anything outside of what we 'observe', they are wrong. But somehow materialistic evidence is what we are left with and will only be accepted here! for reasons i will never know.

Wow, that's a pretty heavy post, I fear it will take me so long to comprehend it that Ill never get around to furnishing an approppriate question or response.

So, how about this place-holder comment slash question in the meantime:

Galileo, the father of modern science, who pushed the language of math, and measurement of quantitative data (size weight movement etc), and thus ignored the qualitative, is said to have in one genius move, provided science its modern awesome power, and spontaneously deprived it of any way to comprehend consciousness as it deals in quala. Your post reminded me of that view. This may explain why a young Dennet could suggest consciousness does not exist (strictly true - from a Galilean quantitative POV), and allow other folk like Sam Harris to suggest consciousness emerges from the material, that is qualitative derives from quantative, which from a common man's sense of things be exactly the wrong way round, that there is some quala essence that underpins the things we observe and can manipulate so well in the 21st century. I am interested in your reaction to this?

Additionally, does the above end up with some kind of panpsycism? Was Schopenhaeur, and Berkely, more right than the anyone ever admitted? Is this also where Penrose ends up?

 

[Evolved1]

Sure, but if all the other religions are wrong, why tolerate their lies?

To give people time to accept the obvious truth of Christianity before the final judgement when non-Christians are rightfully thrown in a lake of burning sulfur for eternity.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

To give people time to accept the obvious truth of Christianity before the final judgement when non-Christians are rightfully thrown in a lake of burning sulfur for eternity.

Pluralism in action.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Is it at odds with Christian doctrine?

Christians, both secular and otherwise, believe in the One True God and therefore nothing else exists or is deserving of worship. Secular Christians by and large have no problems living in the community with other faiths though. When you get Christian websites that warn of the evils of secular Christianity and its more humanistic approaches

3 signs you are a secular Christian

We Christians can so often be more worldly than not - Christians more focused on secular pursuits rather than the pursuit of Christ.

www.christiantoday.com

Secular Christians fail to live out the life that God intended for them. While they say they have received Christ, they fail to follow Him fully, and are thus a people who don't live out their real identities in Him. This kind of life is not what God wants for us.

It's very dangerous to be a secular Christian. The Lord Jesus said we are not of this world though we live here...

...secular Christians have a focus on rules that appear to have common sense and might even sound "Biblical," but such rules can never change the heart. Only the word of God, revealed by the Holy Spirit, can make a person see the error of his ways and thus change him. Lists of humanistic "good moral" rules can never do that.

Colossians 2:20-23 tells us,

"Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations - "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," which all concern things which perish with the using - according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh."

In closing

These three aren't the only signs the Bible gives us, but I believe these are the most telling of all. Anybody can go to church and speak Christianese, but not everyone who calls himself a "Christian" really does follow Christ. Jesus Himself told us this truth, and we better heed it:

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Matthew 7:21-23)

you start to wonder about it. I mean, I guess the non-secular and non-humanist Christianity is the religion in its purest form, but the secular version has outnumbered the purist version (in the catholic world at least) for quite a while now.

Michael Flynn, like myself, came from an Irish Catholic background, but he seems to have gone to the complete other end of the spectrum and has become quite militant in his views. He's fond of secularism when it exists around other religions, of course;

What Mike Flynn Did for Turkey

New information about Flynn’s involvement with Turkey raises new questions about his judgment—and about the Administration’s handling of his entanglements.

www.newyorker.com

March 2017

One Friday last July, as members of the Turkish military were staging a coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Michael Flynn, the retired lieutenant general who went on to become Donald Trump’s first national-security adviser, gave a speech in Cleveland. The event was organized by a local chapter of ACT for America, a self-described “grassroots national security organization” that regards Muslims with considerable suspicion.

“There’s an ongoing coup going on in Turkey right now," Flynn said in his remarks. "Right now!” The country, Flynn said, was heading “towards Islamism” under Erdoğan, and the military was trying to preserve Turkey’s secular identity. The audience applauded the putschists...

but wants a Christian theocracy to arise in the United States. A man of some influence inside the U.S military considering he was once director of the U.S Defense Intelligence Agency and briefly Donald Trump's national security adviser.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Christians, both secular and otherwise, believe in the One True God and therefore nothing else exists or is deserving of worship.
Secular Christians by and large have no problems living in the community with other faiths though. When you get Christian websites that warn of the evils of secular Christianity and its more humanistic approaches you start to wonder about it. I mean, I guess the non-secular and non-humanist Christianity is the religion in its purest form, but the secular version has outnumbered the purist version (in the catholic world at least) for quite a while now.

If they're devout Christians, to what extent are they really secular?

If they are indeed secular, then what do they actually believe?

Can you be secular and still believe in the rapture?

Michael Flynn, like myself, came from an Irish Catholic background, but he seems to have gone to the complete other end of the spectrum and has become quite militant in his views. He's fond of secularism when it exists around other religions, of course; but wants a Christian theocracy to arise in the United States. A man of some influence inside the U.S military considering he was once director of the U.S Defense Intelligence Agency and briefly Donald Trump's national security adviser.

Yeah, I know who Michael Flynn is, thanks.

 

[Total Power]

Wow, that's a pretty heavy post, I fear it will take me so long to comprehend it that Ill never get around to furnishing an approppriate question or response.

So, how about this place-holder comment slash question in the meantime:

Galileo, the father of modern science, who pushed the language of math, and measurement of quantitative data (size weight movement etc), and thus ignored the qualitative, is said to have in one genius move, provided science its modern awesome power, and spontaneously deprived it of any way to comprehend consciousness as it deals in quala. Your post reminded me of that view. This may explain why a young Dennet could suggest consciousness does not exist (strictly true - from a Galilean quantitative POV), and allow other folk like Sam Harris to suggest consciousness emerges from the material, that is qualitative derives from quantative, which from a common man's sense of things be exactly the wrong way round, that there is some quala essence that underpins the things we observe and can manipulate so well in the 21st century. I am interested in your reaction to this?

Additionally, does the above end up with some kind of panpsycism? Was Schopenhaeur, and Berkely, more right than the anyone ever admitted? Is this also where Penrose ends up?

Kind of, but i don't subscribe to all of IIT. Let me explain why:

While I can understand them being useful as metaphores about mind, I can't help but point out the screaming fact that brain and mind work nothing like computers (Which IIT reckons it does) - memory for example, there's no addressable memory with ordered data and nowhere in the brain exists a data bank where an image of apple is stored...

I read a fascinating article once on the subject, damn that I can't remember where or find it within any browsers bookmarks... But the guy made a point that we are using computers as metaphor, because it's nearly impossible for us to describe how brain works without comparison to something we know, and microprocessors are currently the most complicated technological machinery for such purpose.
Further, this has been the case before information technology: in the past scientists have used comparisons to steam and clockwork technology, even to really old stuff, like ropes, pulleys, cogwheels & gears and a donkey ;D

He also asked a number of scientists studying brain/mind to come up with article on their "stuff", but without using ANY reference to IT, and while they happily agreed and many even thought that the idea off it being challenging was hilarious... And yet all, most the next day, came back saying they couldn't do it

 

[ChampRevesby]

What do folks think about this Christian?

One religion? I mean, isn't that the logical conclusion if all the other religions are wrong?

Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in US

Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, says ‘These people hate the US constitution’

www.theguardian.com

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's i.e. separation of church and state just like the bible says.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's i.e. separation of church and state just like the bible says.

Right, but what about all the other religions that are spreading lies?

 

[Osho]

That life has no meaning over and above the facts of its existence.

That is not to say that life as experienced by each individual is automatically pointless or futile (as a nihilist I am perfectly capable of awe at the complexity and beauty of the natural world, of admiration and yes, revulsion of what humans can do), but if there is something that we might call "meaning" to be found in life, it is up to each individual to find it.

For me, given that most of us agree we didn't exist before we were born, I think in the pointed absence of anything else to go on, it is reasonable to assume we will again cease to exist when we die.

That gives me a great sense of urgency about living this ridiculously brief life to the fullest, and there is nothing negative about it.

Thanks for that.
I don't expect you to rate my questions as worth asking or not, obviously what is important in life diverges greatly from person to person. Having said all of that, I am interested in ethics and how to live, and how robust they can be, and where they may break down.

I haven't found any ethics that are internally consistent which don't beg the question. Religious ethics need to assume god as a presupposition before going to the next step. It seems to me science does a similar thing, presupposing the scientific method as the way to proceed. It has a very strong case - what is more effective, and self effacing, than science? Who would want to live without it? However, the method may blind one to other experiences, or make us incapable of knowing other things (nature of consciousness, epistemology in a world with no time dimension, explaining experiencing). But science works. There is no escaping it.

However, does science pursue truth or what works, for they may be different. Just as evolution often develops beings that misinterpret the world, and falsify it and m such misinterpre
tation still enhances life's continuation, just as Newtonian science explained the world effectively, even if it has flawed formulas, that is, what works and promotes life does not need to be true.

From these examples pragmatism trumps the truth, so an ethic may just need to follow the nature of the world and be pragmatic. It may not be the world we want, but there are many things I want (uhumm) that are just never going to happen and are impractical or fanciful. If pragmatism trumps truth, our truth searching ethics may be barking up the wrong tree.

Religion is a wonderful invention (contra Communism) by virtue that the pay off is after death, and noone has come back to dispute it, yet. Communism's heaven is on earth, and plenty survived the killing fields and central planned famine to dispute it.

So, is the only ethic worth its weight in the battle for survival pragmatic, rather than true, and what is pragmatic one day may not be the next?

 

[ChampRevesby]

Right, but what about all the other religions that are spreading lies?

Every religion claims the others are false hence, secular state with liberal democracy at its core. No need or want for religion.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Every religion claims the others are false hence, secular state with liberal democracy at its core.

Yeah, but how do devout Christians feel about those other religions?

Is it really surprising that Michael Flynn would insist that his religion deserves primacy?

In that regard, his beliefs are incompatible with liberal democracy.

 

[Number37]

In my case, it doesn't get filled by anything. Nothing is filled by faith alone.

I'll wait to see where the evidence points before I decide what might be probable about what is currently unknown.

You/anyone fills the void with whatever you/they choose. For most people it is religion/faith/God because that is how we are wired.
In some ways the void is filled with faith/religion/God as a default, again, because that is the way that we are wired.
So even when you say 'in your case it doesn't get filled', what you are also saying is that you are preventing it from filling with the default.
Consistent with that is that you say that you are waiting for answers.

See, that's imposition. The reverse of which is a militant athiest imposing "there is no God and you're an idiot for believing in an afterlife ruled by a sky fairy!" on you. I'm agnostic because I can't prove anything but I still reject God. God has no place in my life. I reject the catholic faith I was brought up in. I was baptised into it as a baby completely against my will and had no legal means of consent. I reject it all.

I resent that imposition just as much as a person of faith resents the absolutist "there is no God and all who believe are fools" being imposed on them. Agnosticism critisises neither because both could be right but it's still a godless position to take. It resents imposition and wants it to stop.

As I tried to explain above, consciously rejecting faith/religion/God and preventing those things from filling the void is the same thing as consciously filling it with those things. The basis of the decision is the same for both ....faith/religion/God. One says yes and the other no.

Perhaps that doesn't make any sense to you

 

[Evolved1]

You/anyone fills the void with whatever you/they choose. For most people it is religion/faith/God because that is how we are wired.
In some ways the void is filled with faith/religion/God as a default, again, because that is the way that we are wired.
So even when you say 'in your case it doesn't get filled', what you are also saying is that you are preventing it from filling with the default.
Consistent with that is that you say that you are waiting for answers.

Is there objective evidence for the existence of this void you speak of?

 

[Sweet Jesus]

As I tried to explain above, consciously rejecting faith/religion/God and preventing those things from filling the void is the same thing as consciously filling it with those things. The basis of the decision is the same for both ....faith/religion/God. One says yes and the other no.

Only if you think that believing without evidence is the same as not believing without evidence.

In the absence of evidence, why believe anything?

Do you consider belief in the tooth fairy equally as valid as not believing in the tooth fairy?