Theology

[Dagda]

Mind is a word like the word self.  It doesn't exist on its own but rather is a term used to describe a process of interaction between form (the body), sense perception (the ability to touch, see, etc.), feeling (sense identification such as hot cold), mental formations (thoughts) and consciousness.  Self is a concept like mind that is made up of the interactions of the same five things.  Self does not exist as a separate entity either.

I disagree. Try and remember your first memory. Got it? Well according to physics, you were not actually there. Not one atom that was you then is you now. So how can there possibly be a continuity between you then and now? Obviously you are not two different people, but what is providing that continuity? I believe it is mind. Of course you can disagree with this interpretation, but please don’t pretend that your definition of mind is somehow more justifiable than mine. We simply don’t know enough about physics yet to ascertain whether mind exists.

Why must there be a God? Although it is (perhaps) conceivable that we got here without some kind of God, that is not the same as saying that we got here without some kind of God. This Universe had a beginning, a cause. There may or may not have been a Universe before that, and there may or may not be an endless line of repeating Big Bang to end scenarios, but this Universe had a beginning. This cause or beginning we call God. Of course we (atheists included) are guilty of projecting their own image of God onto this cause. Even if this cause was gas, or colliding atoms, this effect created or caused this Universe, therefore is called God. However, as seen above, I think this cause was something more than colliding atoms, at least in the creation of mind.

I enjoy the watchmaker's argument. You look at God and see human characteristics. Therefore, we conclude there was a human creator behind him.

If I understand you correctly you are saying that because God has human characteristics is the Christian tradition, you conclude that He is an invention of humans? Well that is a nice preposition, but can you back it up, or were you just adding you own thoughts to the debate? I, of course would disagree. God has human characteristics because we are made in His image. That and humans tend to give everything human characteristics. For instance, if I say the tree looked fierce, I have placed a human characteristic on a tree so as to better describe the characteristics of the tree. This does not mean trees are human inventions.

[hismikeness]

For instance, if I say the tree looked fierce, I have placed a human characteristic on a tree so as to better describe the characteristics of the tree. This does not mean trees are human inventions.

So far, I've really liked (albeit disagreed with some of it) every point you've made. But this tree analogy... not apple and apples. Sure, you say a tree looked fierce you've anthropomorphized the tree, and it most certainly doesn't make the tree a human invention. But there is evidence the tree exists because I can see it, touch it and carelessly smack in to it in the woods. Unlike a God with human characteristics.

And why wouldn't the Christian God be human like? Most made up God's that are now considered mythology had human characteristics, and they were juxtaposed with things that could be seen or experienced: the sun, the sea, the moon, the wind, lightning, rain, stars, and not one of those things appears remotely close to human. So why wouldn't the Christian God, and any future human created Gods carry resemblance to its followers?

Hismikeness

[elliebean]

I enjoy the watchmaker's argument. You look at God and see human characteristics. Therefore, we conclude there was a human creator behind him.

If I understand you correctly you are saying that because God has human characteristics is the Christian tradition, you conclude that He is an invention of humans? Well that is a nice preposition, but can you back it up, or were you just adding you own thoughts to the debate? I, of course would disagree. God has human characteristics because we are made in His image.

So god is a watch?

PS... that is not a preposition; that is a pronoun.

[Ellainix]

I enjoy the watchmaker's argument. You look at God and see human characteristics. Therefore, we conclude there was a human creator behind him.

If I understand you correctly you are saying that because God has human characteristics is the Christian tradition, you conclude that He is an invention of humans? Well that is a nice preposition, but can you back it up, or were you just adding you own thoughts to the debate? I, of course would disagree. God has human characteristics because we are made in His image. That and humans tend to give everything human characteristics. For instance, if I say the tree looked fierce, I have placed a human characteristic on a tree so as to better describe the characteristics of the tree. This does not mean trees are human inventions.

I think your tree analogy is bad.

No one claims that a tree has supernatural powers or created the entire universe. No one has any trouble believing that a tree exists. If you tried to convince someone that a fierce-looking tree they have never seen exists, they would have no trouble believing as they have already seen thousands of trees.

[idiotsavant]

No one claims that a tree has supernatural powers or created the entire universe. No one has any trouble believing that a tree exists. If you tried to convince someone that a fierce-looking tree they have never seen exists, they would have no trouble believing as they have already seen thousands of trees.

I agree with Ellanix - Experiential knowledge trumps hearsay, and we tend to trust that which we can extrapolate from experience.  The less we can relate new to old the less we trust.

The Christians in the book of Acts had experienced God.  Their experiences sound fun and exciting, but are they real?

"Are you experienced?" ~ Jimmy Hendrix

Peace - I/s

[brekfustuvluzerz]

didnt read all this, but to the op: why did god create two bad apples? and to the people talking about why life is better than death, the obvious answer is evolution. critters that didnt see the reason in staying alive died and didnt have as many children.

[notself]

No one claims that a tree has supernatural powers or created the entire universe. No one has any trouble believing that a tree exists. If you tried to convince someone that a fierce-looking tree they have never seen exists, they would have no trouble believing as they have already seen thousands of trees.

I agree with Ellanix - Experiential knowledge trumps hearsay, and we tend to trust that which we can extrapolate from experience.  The less we can relate new to old the less we trust.

The Christians in the book of Acts had experienced God.  Their experiences sound fun and exciting, but are they real?

"Are you experienced?" ~ Jimmy Hendrix

Peace - I/s

I have experience all sorts of things when I am in deep meditation including an episode of overwhelming joy.  If I were a Christian I would say that these experiences proved there was a god.  As an atheist and a Theravada Buddhist, I know that these experiences were the result of a deeply concentrated mind.  All of these 'god' experiences are from the mind alone.

[notself]

quote="Dagda"]

Mind is a word like the word self.  It doesn't exist on its own but rather is a term used to describe a process of interaction between form (the body), sense perception (the ability to touch, see, etc.), feeling (sense identification such as hot cold), mental formations (thoughts) and consciousness.  Self is a concept like mind that is made up of the interactions of the same five things.  Self does not exist as a separate entity either.

I disagree. Try and remember your first memory. Got it? Well according to physics, you were not actually there. Not one atom that was you then is you now. So how can there possibly be a continuity between you then and now? Obviously you are not two different people, but what is providing that continuity? I believe it is mind. Of course you can disagree with this interpretation, but please don’t pretend that your definition of mind is somehow more justifiable than mine. We simply don’t know enough about physics yet to ascertain whether mind exists.

The cells in the body and their component atoms are not replaced all at once.  Memories are repeated continually as we think.  This is called reminiscing.  It reinforces those memory pathways.  But you must already know all this.  You are just trying to ignore simple scientific and neurological facts in order to cling to your sky mommy.  What does your god do for you why do you need her?

This Universe had a beginning, a cause. There may or may not have been a Universe before that, and there may or may not be an endless line of repeating Big Bang to end scenarios, but this Universe had a beginning. This cause or beginning we call God. Of course we (atheists included) are guilty of projecting their own image of God onto this cause. Even if this cause was gas, or colliding atoms, this effect created or caused this Universe, therefore is called God. However, as seen above, I think this cause was something more than colliding atoms, at least in the creation of mind.

No one has identified the beginning of the Universe.  People talk about the singularity and big bang, but there is no idea about the nature of the singularity itself because the laws of physics to not apply.  Now you can call the singularity god, but then you have to realize that your god is no longer with us.  The singularity is now the universe as we know it. Since we are made up of the very matter and energy of the singularity then you might as well worship yourself as your god.

By the way, you never defined what you mean by mind or what you mean by god.  What are the attributes of each?  What precisely do you expect from your god?

[idiotsavant]

All of these 'god' experiences are from the mind alone.

Ah yes, I remember the bliss of Logical Certainty.  Your explanation is plausible, but it doesn’t explain the precognition....

Peace - I/s

[LoneMateria]

Ah yes, I remember the bliss of Logical Certainty.  Your explanation is plausible, but it doesn’t explain the precognition....

Peace - I/s

... but magic does?

[Tanker]

All of these 'god' experiences are from the mind alone.

Ah yes, I remember the bliss of Logical Certainty.  Your explanation is plausible, but it doesn’t explain the precognition....

Peace - I/s

"The presognition"? Are you speaking of prediction? If so please give examples of verifiable events.

[Ellainix]

All of these 'god' experiences are from the mind alone.

Ah yes, I remember the bliss of Logical Certainty.  Your explanation is plausible, but it doesn’t explain the precognition....

Peace - I/s

I want to see precognition explained.

[notself]

Precognition/prediction is the result of taking in various bits and pieces of information, subconsciously organizing the data and coming up with a probability (a hunch).

I got a hunch three times and was correct each time.  The first time was when my husband and I had a fight and he took off in his car.  I stormed around the house for a few minutes and then decided to go find him.  I did not see which way he went or know where he was going.  I went straight to a gas station that was about 4 miles away and found him.  His face went gray.  He thinks I am sort of witchy but in a good way.  

I won't bore you with the other two examples but they are along the same lines.  I think that anyone in my situation could pick up enough bits and pieces to analyze the possibilities and pick the most probable one, i.e. where my husband was. Granted this was my subconscious working but so what?

Nothing spiritual about it.

[Dagda]

Yes, I admit that the tree analogy was bad (I really could not come up with a good analogy), but I hope my pint was understood-just because humans feel the need to place human characteristics on non-human things does not mean that they themselves do not exist, just that the characteristics owe more to human psychology than the actuality of the object.

The cells in the body and their component atoms are not replaced all at once.  Memories are repeated continually as we think.  This is called reminiscing.  It reinforces those memory pathways.  But you must already know all this.  You are just trying to ignore simple scientific and neurological facts in order to cling to your sky mommy.  What does your god do for you why do you need her?

Interesting use of the feminine pronoun especially seeing as I have declared God in the masculine anytime I have posted on this forum. This is more because of traditional prejudices and my own imposition of myself on God (I am male therefore God is He). Although I would probably count as a feminist theologian, the habits of centuries are hard to break.

Anyhow, a nice analogy is that of a book. If I slowly but surely remove and replace the pages and cover with identical pieces, I would have the same book at the end. However, I would not technique have the same book, but a book which looks the same as the last one. From what I can remember from my psychology, the theory of reinforcing memory pathways has its own problems; the idea does not seem to operate in Long Term Memory (LTM) which is encoded semantically rather than acoustically-repetition of the memory is not needed in many cases. Let us take an example. Say Jill was sexually abused by her father at age 15, and she has repressed this event for 25 years. However, some emotional event at age 40 breaks through this wall and she can now remember the sexual abuse. As far as I know this is a plausible scenario, but the human body replaces itself every 10 years and this memory has obviously not been reinforced through repetition (was repressed) so how does the memory survive 25 years and two changes of body? Perhaps the memory was replayed in the subconscious, but this seems to be conjecture.

I am quite interested in the idea of the replacement of the body, so could you possibly give me a link to the study which researched into the reinforcing of memory pathways in relation to the replacement of the bodily material?

Of course it brings up interesting moral questions; if we are not the same person we were 10 years ago, can we still be held accountable for a 10 year old crime? Apparently so, but does this mean that we are the sum total of our memories? If this is true, then does this mean that if I forgot I had committed a crime 10 years ago I would no longer be morally responsible?

I think my definition of God can be found above, but as for my definition of mind I simply do not know. I think the mind exists in some context (thanks to various philosophical, theological and scientific breakthroughs ) but as to what it is exactly, I would need further evidence to come to a conclusion. I do not want to be duty bound to protect a definition of mind which later evidence proves to be false. The difference between a person of reasonable and blind faith is that someone of reasonable faith can stand uncertainty.

I suppose I gain rather a lot from God, but am not arrogant enough to believe what I gain from God really plays a major part in any deities day. What do you gain from atheism?

[elliebean]

I don't remember all the details right now, but I'm fairly certain I recall having heard it was discovered that memories are made of a certain kind of protein. I could look it up, but then, so could you.