[quote]pat36 wrote:
While “Zeus, Batman, Santa Claus, Fairies, Elves, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, Vampires etc.” have never actually presented valid evidence of existance, the has been and is actual evidence of God’s existance.[/quote]
Really? Please enlighten us.
A lot of things exist that I cannot detect with my 5 senses. I’m not advocating a “sensist” outlook where anything not “feelable” does not exist. Please do not assign me and attack weak positions that I do not have.
I did not need to “reason out” the existence of God; I simply had to realize that it was never “reasoned in” to begin with.
If you think that seeking truth is important and worthwhile, you have to be ready to concede that ideas you find unpleasant can be true. Is there anyway that you would be convinced that God has no supporting evidence for his existence? If not, then this discussing is pointless, since you already hold the conclusion you wish, and do not give importance to whether or not it can be reasoned.
Rainjack display the same cognitive dissonance; opening with the assertion that faith is not rational, then going on for two paragraphs trying to rationalize it.
On the contrary, I’d be quite happy to find some evidence for the existence of God. Having a benevolent paternal/maternal figure watching over me and my loved ones would be of some comfort. Knowing that my existence will not end with my death would be an even nicer reality.
But it must be true; believing it just because it feels good, or because of peer pressure, family tradition or societal culture is simply not enough for me.
Atheist care about being right because they care about the objective truth; theists do not. It is good enough for them to believe that they have the truth, regardless of whether they do or don’t. Maybe it satisfies them; I prefer the alternative, even if it’s unpopular or uncomfortable.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
While “Zeus, Batman, Santa Claus, Fairies, Elves, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, Vampires etc.” have never actually presented valid evidence of existance, the has been and is actual evidence of God’s existance.
Really? Please enlighten us.
[/quote]
Not my problem, go find it yourself. You can even google "evidence of God’s existance"I have done my homework and I am not interested in converting you. I don’t actually care that your atheist.
So you believe in metaphysical enities, but just not God? Okay, have it your way.
Sure I can. If you can prove that God does not exist, I am all ears; or eyes in this case. I will also applaud and shake your hand when you receive the nobel prize since you would have been the first person ever to do so. And I will cease in my silly belief. It better be good though, because I belive I have been privy to the best. Irronically, my favorite philosophers were atheists.
Really, you seem quite defensive of your position. Hanging on to it like a teddy bear for comfort. Berating others as stupid who do not belive like you do.
Like I said earlier, there are plenty of evidences and proofs out there. If you are truly interested then seek them out. I doubt anything is going to fall from the sky and land in your lap; although stranger things have happened, it’s not likely. I have done my homework and plenty of it. I did not arrive at my conclusion lightly. I just found the arguments for, better than the arguments against. Hence I drew my own conclusion.
Having a true honest discussion about the topic is just not realistic on a forum. We’re talking about pages and pages of dissertation arguing for and against.
What the statement actaully means is that, all else being equal, if a theist is wrong, then he did little more than waste his time. If an atheist is wrong then there is something to answer to.
Most atheist I have known don’t really give a shit about being right, they give a shit about feeling good. There is no benefit to delayed gratification.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
There very much is a rational component to “faith” as you are describing it.
Faith is rational…
Your relationship with God, is not a rational thing.
Oh, now it’s not.
Flip-flop, flip-flop…[/quote]
I can quote you out of context and change the meaning of what you said to.
Apparently, the nuances of the english language escape you. You know perfectly well that accepting the existence of something metaphysical and developing an interactionwith that something are to entirely different matters.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
Not my problem, go find it yourself. You can even google "evidence of God’s existance"I have done my homework and I am not interested in converting you.[/quote]
Been there, done that. All those various “proofs” are flawed in one way or another, or require you to accept the conclusion a priori.
If “I believe God exists because I believe it” convinces you, fine.
You’re the one who jumped into the debate with your logical fallacies. We were discussing the Koran’s message before you felt the need to chime in with your less than enlightening views…
Before I get defensive of my position, it would be necessary for you to find a way to attack it with rational arguments.
Only if you accept the conclusion as a given a priori.
Really. How do you think others reach theirs? It’s not like school, society or family (in my case) are pushing their heavy atheist agenda.
Well then, why don’t you just butt out and let us discuss the Koran?
Oh. Pascal’s wager. How original. Type that in Google and keep yourself busy.
Gee, that’s nice. What’s that have to do with whether God exists or not?
[quote]pat36 wrote:
I can quote you out of context and change the meaning of what you said to.[/quote]
Ok, do it.
Not really. It just takes a bit more self-delusion to develop a relationship with an imaginary entity than it does to believe it exists in the first place.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Not really. It just takes a bit more self-delusion to develop a relationship with an imaginary entity than it does to believe it exists in the first place.[/quote]
I’m not sure growing up in a religious world can be called a self-delusion. Indoctrination, perhaps, but hardly self-delusion. If you received salvation, that would be self-delusion.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
Not my problem, go find it yourself. You can even google "evidence of God’s existance"I have done my homework and I am not interested in converting you.
Been there, done that. All those various “proofs” are flawed in one way or another, or require you to accept the conclusion a priori.
If “I believe God exists because I believe it” convinces you, fine.
So you believe in metaphysical enities, but just not God? Okay, have it your way.
Who said anything about metaphysical entities?
[/quote]
You did. You said this: “A lot of things exist that I cannot detect with my 5 senses. I’m not advocating a “sensist” outlook where anything not “feelable” does not exist. Please do not assign me and attack weak positions that I do not have.”
So if you believe in anything abstract that is not detectable by the senses that “thing” is metaphysical. If it can be sensed it is empirical. Most atheists are empiricists. You claim to not be yet you do. Which is it? Do you deal in physical evidence only or do you belive in metaphysical entities?
[/quote]
Sure I can. If you can prove that God does not exist, I am all ears; or eyes in this case.
I see you have only this argument.
[/quote]
It’s the only one I need.
Wiki said it, it must be true!!
And I could find hundreds arguments with positive proof. So what does that prove.
I didn’t say you made an actual, real argument as a defense. I was refering to your emotional, belittling rhetoric as a defense of your personhood. I don’t actually recall you making an argument.
Really? How so?
Don’t know, don’t care. How is “everybody else” relevent?
I believe Sir Francis Bacon came up with it first, nevertheless, why would it mean less just because somebody has said it before. How much or your so called “argument” is your completely your own?
It doesn’t and neither did the rest of the post. Like I said, I can’t find where you actually made an argument.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
You did. You said this: “A lot of things exist that I cannot detect with my 5 senses. I’m not advocating a “sensist” outlook where anything not “feelable” does not exist. Please do not assign me and attack weak positions that I do not have.”[/quote]
Thanks for making my point. Where do you see metaphysical entities being mentioned there?
Maybe an example will help you: A magnet has a magnetic field. I cannot detect that field with any of my senses. I cannot see, hear, touch, smell, taste or spatially orient it. Yet I still believe that the field exists, because I can ascertain it’s presence using other means.
The problem with God is that while none of your senses can detect him, you cannot ascertain his presence using other means either.
Wrong again. A lot of entirely physical things exist beyond our senses.
Suit yourself.
[quote]Wiki said it, it must be true!!
And I could find hundreds arguments with positive proof. So what does that prove.[/quote]
Find my a single positive proof argument that hasn’t been refuted a thousand times already.
When you jumped in with your confused views, I had just stated that belief in god/faith was not reasonable.
You apparently thought there was an argument being made at that point, or you wouldn’t have responded. Or do you just go around the forums haphazardly replying to random posts?
[quote]Like I said earlier, there are plenty of evidences and proofs out there.
Only if you accept the conclusion as a given a priori.
Really? How so?[/quote]
The positive proofs of the existence of God only work if you assume from the onset the existence of God. There are no positive proofs that go from non existence of god and deduce his existence logically without invoking one fallacy or another along the way.
I am and I have. They don’t exist.
That has already been suggested to me a long while ago. I believe it was in the “Praying for Pookie” thread of a few years ago. I mentioned that having a piano crash next to me unexplainably would go a long way towards changing my mind.
You seem to be operating under the notion that only you are interested in this question enough to have done research about it. From what you write, it’s like everyone else flips a coin and bases their beliefs on that.
Regardless of whether anyone said it before, the argument is known throughout the world as “Pascal’s Wager.” It saves time for everyone if you refer to well known arguments by their common appellation.
As for meaning less, I tend to consider arguments that have been thoroughly and completely debated and conclusively shown to be wrong to be worthless (other than as historical footnotes) in forming a valid opinion on something.
It’s not what’s your own or not that’s important, it’s what’s been debunked and what hasn’t that should matter.
What are you responding to then? If you’re unable to explain your views clearly, then just bow out and go discuss something else, instead of playing these silly little games where you post multiple paragraphs about arguments you can’t seem to find.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
You did. You said this: “A lot of things exist that I cannot detect with my 5 senses. I’m not advocating a “sensist” outlook where anything not “feelable” does not exist. Please do not assign me and attack weak positions that I do not have.”
Thanks for making my point. Where do you see metaphysical entities being mentioned there?
Maybe an example will help you: A magnet has a magnetic field. I cannot detect that field with any of my senses. I cannot see, hear, touch, smell, taste or spatially orient it. Yet I still believe that the field exists, because I can ascertain it’s presence using other means.
The problem with God is that while none of your senses can detect him, you cannot ascertain his presence using other means either.
So if you believe in anything abstract that is not detectable by the senses that “thing” is metaphysical.
Wrong again. A lot of entirely physical things exist beyond our senses.
[/quote]
Once something becomes measurable it is no loses it’s metaphysical property because the concept becomes a fact. It goes from abstract to concrete. As long as you are willing to concede that there are things that exist that have not been measured yet then I am happy.
I’d say the same thing about negative proofs. Besides most good arguments have not been refuted they just simply cannot not be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Which is a must for ant good deductive argument. Most decent arguments agaist the existance of God suffer the same fate. The author cannot complete the task as he enters the realm of the unprovable.
And I said your views are equally unreasonable. You’ll have just as much luck proving, beyond the shadow of a doubt that nothing exists beyound the psyical realm.
If that is what you think the you clearly did not study the proofs for existance. Good arguments deduce the conclusion. Most of the good philosophers out there aren’t stupid enough to publish arguments with a clear logical fallacy.
When you say these arguments have been refuted, which ones are you talking about? In modern western philosphy, the debate has been raging since Aristotle. Most have not been refuted. Refuted means proven false. Which arguments are proven false? Because I’d have to see that. Like I said neither argument can be proven dedutively. If you have the one that does that, then bring it.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
Once something becomes measurable it is no loses it’s metaphysical property because the concept becomes a fact. It goes from abstract to concrete. As long as you are willing to concede that there are things that exist that have not been measured yet then I am happy. [/quote]
You want me to admit that we don’t know everything? Ok.
You can’t prove a negative. Didn’t you mention you liked some philosophers before? Look it up in philosophy books if wikipedia annoys you for some reason.
Well then, you can’t use something that “just simply cannot be proven” as proof, now can you?
That’s why no one (well, no one reasonably honest) asks for negative proofs. There is no way to do them. I mean, prove to me that I don’t have an invisible unicorn in my back yard at this very moment.
I don’t have to prove it. I don’t need to. I simply say there is no evidence to support it.
If we were to list all the things and entities that have been imagined since the beginning of humanity and for which we have no evidence of existence in reality, you wouldn’t believe in 99.99% of them. You make an exception for your concept of God; I don’t. You’re rational in all cases, except one.
Yet, you don’t go berating people that they can’t disprove Santa Claus or Vishnu or Odin; you simply know that since they have no supporting evidence, concerning yourself with disproving their existence would be futile.
That’s the problem. Often the fallacies are not clear at all and stem from a misunderstanding of some concept or the other. Some stood for months or years before someone finally was able to explain what was wrong with it. The ontological argument being a good example of this, as it is still being (weakly) debated today.
It doesn’t seem as you’ve really done as much “homework” and searching as you claim, as I shouldn’t really have to tell someone who’s “done his homework” about this.
If we’re going to list them all, we’ll be here 'til Christmas. I contend they have all been refuted, you claim otherwise. Why don’t you post one of the unrefuted ones and we can discuss that one.
Now you say that neither side can prove his claims; a few paragraphs before, you said that most “pro-” arguments hadn’t been refuted… which is it?
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
Once something becomes measurable it is no loses it’s metaphysical property because the concept becomes a fact. It goes from abstract to concrete. As long as you are willing to concede that there are things that exist that have not been measured yet then I am happy.
You want me to admit that we don’t know everything? Ok.
[/quote]
More like the potential for “things” to exist that are beyond our senses and our ability to measure them. Yet, they exist nonetheless. But I’ll accept “we don’t know everything”
In my haste I said negative, what I meant were counter arguments. And I like wikipedia I actually have no problems with and I use it all the time. I was really referring to the absurdity of providing a link as if it had a definitive answer.
The knife cuts both ways. None of the counter arguments cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, nor can they be proven as a complete refutation unless they detect a logical fallacy in the argument.
Sure there is evidence. You may choose to ignore it or think it’s retarded, gay or stupid, but it is evidence none the less or dismissing it doesn’t change that. It may make you feel better, but it doesn’t change it.
I cannot prove there is an invisible unicorn in your back yard, that is true and now you are starting to understand. Just because you can’t prove it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Anything is possible and nothing is provable beyond the shadow of a doubt except for simple mathematical equations.
Actually, you could prove Santa Claus, as he is normally defined, does not exist. We can go to the north pole and drill down to the ocean. We can look for Santa Claus we could even trap him if he were to exist. However, a St. Nicholas did exist at some point.
Though I never was a big fan of the ontological argument, I think it has largely been misunderstood. The biggest problem I see with the ontological argument conception of a supreme being is not the same as that that supreme being. The weakness is the missing link, more so that the absurdity that “conception” makes something real.
Guess you’ll never know.
Arguments being problematic and refuted are two different thing entirely. An argument with problems doesn’t make the argument false, it means that it cannot be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. A refuted argument is one that has been proven unequivocally false.
I understand the problems with the arguments for the existence of God and I understand the problems with the counter arguments. My goal isn’t to convince you there is a God, it is to get you to understand that your atheism is no better thought out or reasoned out then my (or anybody else’s) theism. But if you want to discuss an argument, I’ll pick the Cosmological one. Aristotle started it and what is remarkable about it, isn’t that some form of it still survives today, but that he was able to reason out and monotheistic supreme being in a society that was either polytheistic or atheist. He came up with it on his own with out interaction with people who were monotheistic in there beliefs. That’s just a interesting (to me) anecdote about it.
Here is a link to Wiki. It’s short and sweet. It has arguments, counter arguments, and counter arguments to the counter arguments.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
I understand the problems with the arguments for the existence of God and I understand the problems with the counter arguments. My goal isn’t to convince you there is a God, it is to get you to understand that your atheism is no better thought out or reasoned out then my (or anybody else’s) theism.[/quote]
My view doesn’t require me to believe in a supernatural entity for whose existence we have no verifiably evidence.
It’s a bit like saying that someone who believes that people get sick because they’re possessed by evil spirits has an opinion that’s equally valid to someone who knows about germs, bacterias, virii, etc.
I don’t really have a problem with the Cosmological Argument. I simply think that most theist take it too far. Pretty much everyone agrees that something has to be self-existent. Theists posit a God that then creates the universe. You can remove the supernatural entity and simply posit that the universe is self-existent (and in this case, the universe might be more than what we commonly call the “universe”, call it multiverse, metaverse, whatever).
Assigning various attributes to the first cause to make it into the well know idea of “God” is unnecessary.
Or, to take it from another tack, it used to be that every natural phenomena was attributed to “gods.” A god for the wind, a god for the rain, a god for the sun, etc.
As our knowledge and understanding of Nature grew, all the gods became unnecessary, because a better, simpler natural explanation was available. Is it so difficult to imagine that our universe (the common one, that starts at the Big Bang) also has a natural cause?
Basically, the Cosmological argument is very nice, but theist simply take it too far. There is nothing to support that whatever “caused” our universe is more than a natural event. That is has an active interest in what happens, or that it rewards people after death, etc. brings us right back into the realm of wishful thinking and make believe.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
I understand the problems with the arguments for the existence of God and I understand the problems with the counter arguments. My goal isn’t to convince you there is a God, it is to get you to understand that your atheism is no better thought out or reasoned out then my (or anybody else’s) theism.
My view doesn’t require me to believe in a supernatural entity for whose existence we have no verifiably evidence.
It’s a bit like saying that someone who believes that people get sick because they’re possessed by evil spirits has an opinion that’s equally valid to someone who knows about germs, bacterias, virii, etc.
[/quote]
You’re insinuating that somebody who believes in the supernatural is simply uneducated and naive. My contention is damn near the opposite. Someone who allows the possibility of the supernatural opens their mind to the fact that anything is possible; even if unlikely or improbable. I pretty sure most theists would agree that a person is likely sick because of a disease rather than an evil spirit or what not.
As far as evidence, there is evidence out there. Some of it is man-made deception and some of it is legit. Sometimes it’s difficult to decern which is which, but if you just dismiss it then nobody can make you look at it. I think if you get burned by deception one good time, it can color your perception of supernatural interaction as all fake. I get it, I have been burned before.
I agree that it is a flying leap to assume that a first cause is necessarily an all knowing and all loving God. It can be argued however, that what ever was the first cause has to necessarily contain all the properties of it’s resultant effect.
An effect cannot have attributes that it’s cause did not have. This would include things like consciousness, understanding and will. What we cannot assume is that this initial cause used or willed any of it. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s used.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
You’re insinuating that somebody who believes in the supernatural is simply uneducated and naive.[/quote]
Er, no. Please stop arguing against positions I do not hold.
I’m saying, not insinuating, that faith is irrational, at the very least in portion, no matter how smart and educated the believer.
What is the legit evidence for God’s existence?
I think that’s a bad argument. There are plenty of example in nature of complexity arising from simplicity. Evolution describe how complex organisms have, over time, evolved from more simple ones.
I don’t want this to turn into an evolution debate, so I’ll offer another example: If you take a sperm and an ovum, they exhibit no feelings, no personality, no thinking, nothing of what the potential person they represent will eventually be capable of.
Similarly, the “first cause” doesn’t have to exhibit any of the eventual results of it’s “creation.” It only must produce a creation where those things are potentially possible. As anyone who has some knowledge of fractals, or who has ever played Conway’s “Game of Life” knows, you can get extremely complex structures from very, very simple rules and very few base elements.
I disagree with this.
Another example is if we ever build computers that become more intelligent than we are. Does that mean that we had a higher intelligence, but were unable to use it? Or to take a more prosaic example, if you build a car that can go 100mph, does that mean that you also have that attribute? Your assertion has countless counterexamples just from everyday life.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
You’re insinuating that somebody who believes in the supernatural is simply uneducated and naive.
Er, no. Please stop arguing against positions I do not hold.
I’m saying, not insinuating, that faith is irrational, at the very least in portion, no matter how smart and educated the believer.
[/quote]
Your example was one where an atheist sees a sick person and assumes a disease and a theist would perhaps assume an evil spirit. It was either a bad example or my understanding of it was bad.
Yes, faith, by nature and in it�??s definition is irrational as you are putting stock in things you cannot know for sure. However, we do this kind of stuff all the time. How much do we actually know for certain?
For instance, we assume the future will resemble the past. We assume the sun will come up in the morning and set in the evening. We assume our cars will start, our legs will work, there will be food to eat, etc. We make these assumptions, but we do not know for sure. To some degree or another, it is a matter of faith.
I�??d say the best examples of God’s interaction with our world would be seen in miracles, miraculous healings and other strange phenomenons, NDE’s and shit like that. Whether you think it’s legit, well I can’t convince you of that. You would have to take it case by case and do you own digging to your satisfaction. Many cases are clearly bullshit.
Arranging things into various complexities is not creating something out of nothing. It is rearraging the raw materials provided to perform a specific function. Just like imagination, for instance, is a rearrangement of things you already know but have never been combined before.
Try and think of something completely new that is composed of nothing you previously knew. Can�??t do it? Neither can I, or anybody else. For more complex things to evolve from simple things living or not, two things must exist first, the raw material and the potential for it to become this new more complex thing. If either are missing, it cannot be created.
Same with ovum example, once the sperm hits the egg, it draws the rest of it’s raw material from it�??s host to become a person.
Actually “created” is a bad word, because nothing is created or destroyed, they just change states. Wood set on fire becomes, energy, heat, light, smoke, gasses and ash. Just as much raw material existed before the fire as did after it just changed states and location.
I rather doubt we can build a computer smarter than the person that created it. Computers can perform the tasks that we tell it to do, but it is still input and output. I don�??t know of a machine capable of consciousness or original thought. Besides, computer information, in all it�??s glory, is still comprised of 1’s and 0’s.
And hell yes I have the ability to go 100 MPH. I’ll probably come close leaving work today, I have lead foot.
As for this cowboys game, never heard of it, but it still stands to reason that the structures you �??create�?? are still comprised of simple rules and materials, but organized into complex structures. You still need the materials and the potential, otherwise the shit will just sit in the box.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
Your example was one where an atheist sees a sick person and assumes a disease and a theist would perhaps assume an evil spirit. It was either a bad example or my understanding of it was bad. [/quote]
My example was not about theists and atheists, it was about having two explanations for the same phenomena and one of those explanations requiring the existence of supernatural entities, while the other doesn’t. In such case, you’d find that, all other things being equal, the simpler explanation - the one without supernatural entities being invoked - will tend to be the better one, the one closest to the truth.
Well that could be convincing, if what evidence there was for those phenomena was better. Why is it always “invisible” diseases that are miraculously cured? It’s always cancers who go into remission or some such. Why can’t an amputee grow back a limb? THAT would be a true miracle and near impossible to dismiss.
NDEs are, from all appearance, simply the natural result of the brain shutting down from lack of oxygen. Similar experiences have been “provoked” in subject who are not dying through various drugs and processes. Here again, we end up with a simpler explanation that fits all the facts and doesn’t require anything supernatural.
Well yes, but that doesn’t mean that the initial material with it’s potential has any of the attributes that its more complex “descendant” will eventually display.
Yes, and? It’s not draining the intelligence of the host to form it’s own. It’s using very basic material (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrous) and energy to assemble a being that can think, feel, etc.
The base components of the persons (atoms and molecules) do not exhibit any of those things. Only when assemble in that complex manner do these things become possible.
Of course we can. We already have chess playing computers that cannot be defeated by humans. It’s not even close anymore.
So? 1s and 0s are simply a way to store and represent information. What do you think you are? You’re also an input/output system who stores information. Your senses provide input; your memory stores and remembers important information and your brain simply processes and acts on the input and the information.
Not by your naked self, you don’t. But that’s my point. Just as we can build tools to amplify our strength and speed, we can build others tools to amplify our intelligence. Eventually, those tools will be so good as have their own intelligence. At some point, you can build an intelligence greater than your own, and have that intelligence further enhance itself.
You seem to be agreeing with my point. You say you need the base material and the potential, but having both of those doesn’t mean you have the exhibited complexity of the possible end result. If you have 200 pounds of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrous in the right proportions, you basically have everything to make a man. But that material, no matter it’s potential, will exhibit no intelligence, no creativity, nothing.
To get back to our “First Cause” argument, you can then have a FC that makes available enormous potential, but that doesn’t exhibit any traces of that eventual potential in itself. In other words, the “creator” might simply be another natural process, and not a thinking being.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat36 wrote:
Your example was one where an atheist sees a sick person and assumes a disease and a theist would perhaps assume an evil spirit. It was either a bad example or my understanding of it was bad.
My example was not about theists and atheists, it was about having two explanations for the same phenomena and one of those explanations requiring the existence of supernatural entities, while the other doesn’t. In such case, you’d find that, all other things being equal, the simpler explanation - the one without supernatural entities being invoked - will tend to be the better one, the one closest to the truth.
[/quote]
So I understood what you were trying to see. Yes, I agree that simpler explanations not involving the supernatural tend to be correct for most things, but not always. Like my friend’s ex-wife. There is no explanation for that, she’s apiece of work.
Actually, I don’t know if there was an amputee who grew back a limb it may have happened. That may have happened at some point. I wouldn�??t say that the cures and such are always invisible. People who couldn�??t walk, walk. Cancer can be seen and it’s absence can subsequently be seen as well.
As far as NDE’s, yes I have heard of some aspects of it being emulated, but it does not explain when the person sees things that are verifiable by others. such as, what the doctors we doing. What people in the waiting room or in other locations no where near the momentarily dead person. When see those types of things and report it accurately, it’s just weird.
Like you, however, I am a natural skeptic. I would like God to be more obvious.
True, the building blocks of a more complex organism do not display the properties of that more complex organism. I think more important that the raw physical materials is this whole notion of potential. Potential is a noun. It is a thing, yet it cannot be sensed in anyway and cannot be measured. The only way you know about it is after you accomplish a task that has not been previously accomplished. Yet, with out potential, the raw materials are useless, that cannot become anything more than what they are. We also know that potential has to occur before the accomplishment. So where did potential come from. When I talked about metaphysics earlier, these are the types of things I was referring to. In other words, our physical world as we know it is not possible with out the interaction of the metaphysical world. To “create” there must be potential.
So what? A crane can lift more than we can, but like a crane a computer is a tool. Tools are created by humans to help us accomplish goals we cannot do with our bare hands. It�??s one of the things that separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Other animals can use tools, we are the only ones who can create them.
I think I am rather more than a regurgitation of sensory input. While certainly much of my being is dominated by experience. Clearly some of my being would still exist even if my environment had been completely different. Obviously, I cannot prove this.
I disagree. I believe we can build tools that perform certain tasks better that we can on our own, but those tools are useless with out are help. If we ever do manage to build a computer that is some how smarter that us in everyway, I will happily concede your point.
Yes, potential and material are not enough to make anything happen, you need an act of will. Or at least some action (what ever that may be) accidental or not, for raw materials to reach their full potential.
To get back to our “First Cause” argument, you can then have a FC that makes available enormous potential, but that doesn’t exhibit any traces of that eventual potential in itself. In other words, the “creator” might simply be another natural process, and not a thinking being.
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True, the argument in itself does not mean the FC is a thinking being. The argument does not even explain if this first cause even survived the “causing”. It does seem to imply that the first cause exists independently of the cause and effect relationship, which is something else that could be interesting to investigate.
So do we agree on the following: For everything to be created all the raw material for that had to exists, be they molecules, atoms, monads, or subatomic particals, etc. For the material to become anything, the potential for all of the creation had to exist prior to it actually existing. And for this process to get started there had to be an initiation of action?
So then where does potential come from and what is the initiation of action, if not an act of will? I really don’t know what could cause something to happen from something that was not previously caused except will. With this, you may disagree.