Historicity of Claimed Miracles

[Call_of_the_Wild]

A person millenia ago could use a similar argument to "prove" that lightning requires direct supernatural causation and cannot arise from the laws written into nature.

Wait a minute, whose to say that they were wrong? Just because you can describe the conditions which a lightning phenomenon may occur does not mean that God is negated.

And for the life of me I just can't imagine a "natural" scenario/world at which dead inanimate matter is floating around and all of a sudden this matter becomes consciously aware.

At that time, no one could explain how lightning could arise naturally so it "must" have been supernatural. Same thing with consciousness.

I don't think so. First off, again, we may be able to figure out how one form of matter changed into another form of matter, but we won't be able to figure out the origin of all matter while postulating a material cause. It is a lost cause.

Same thing with consciousness

No because just because you have a brain doesn't mean you have consciousness. So it would seem as if you have a chicken/egg problem. If scientists were able to go in a lab and create a brain from pre-existing material, at what point would consciousness come in to play? And since consciousness is only from a first-person view, who would be the consciouss brain? Who would the conscious brain belong too? A male? Female? Who?

So yeah, a chicken/egg problem. If the brain is before the mind, then in order for the mind to connect to the brain, the mind would already have to be "about" something.

Take your own personal mind, for example...your mind is full of thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, reflections, desires, etc. Now, if scientists were able to go in a lab and make a brain from pre-existing material, the brain doesn't have consciousness yet, right? In order for that brain to belong to "you", all of your thoughts, feelings, sensations, reflections, desires, etc, would have to corrolate with this brain. But on a naturalistic view, how could that possibly be done??? So if the brain is before the mind, how can it ever reach the point of consciousness/awareness since it isn't already attached/corrolated with a person?

If the mind comes before the brain, then the brain is not needed to explain the existence of the mind.

On naturalism, I just don't see a way to reconcile this. That is why on the theistic view, it makes sense...that you START off with a super-mind, which is God.

You've pretty much been saying that inanimate matter cannot give rise to consciousness because we cannot explain how it can. Isn't that about the size of it?

I am saying that since we have no scientific evidence supporting the position, there is no reasons to believe that it is true. So it is best that people who don't believe in intelligent design become agnostics. The problem is, people want to claim that naturalism/materialism/atheism is true, which are rather bold claims.

If lighting could not be explained naturally by the ancients, then there would be no reason for them to believe that it is not supernatural, right? Yet they were wrong. It would have been the safer bet for them to simply say "we don't know" and wait until further evidence turned up.

They would have to be agnostics on a few empirical issues, that is all. But theism wouldn't stop there, since guys like Thomas Aquinas and St. Anslem was arguing for the existence of God without using science at all.

We can.

I wont even bother because if that were true, then in order to tell if a person is lying about a crime, all we would have to do is examine their brain and see if they are telling the truth or not...but does this happen? No.

Because there is no certainty that we live in one of the worlds where mind and body are different. It is only possible, it is not certain.

I think it is. I can't think of a possible world at which a brain can be made and thoughts can become naturally correlated with the brain to make the brain the actual "person". It just can't happen.

(1) God creates the Universe.
(2) God puts laws into the Universe which allow consciousness to arise from unconscious matter.
(3) Therefore consciousness arising from unconscious matter is due to God.

Of course with God it is possible!!! My argument is against naturalism/atheism, which are views that God didn't do anything because he doesn't exist.

The same could be true of consciousness. If mind and body are one, then using the argument to "prove" that they are different would be based on a false premise as well.

But again, you have a problem. If a scientist was able to go in a lab and create a brain from preexisting material...then how would the thought of you pushing your baby brother on a swing be inputted into the brain??? Please explain this. If the mind and body are one, then they are inseperable, so if your brain is not being created simultaenously with the thought, then they cant be the same thing.

Exactly. Just because I can imagine something to be possible doesn't mean that it actually is possible.

Yet you cannot imagine a world at which a man can be married and unmarried at the same time. So does that mean that this is impossible?

Yes, but there are some things that can be logically conceived of that are prevented from happening in reality due to other factors. I can conceive of a cricket that can hop faster than the speed of light or a rock that releases an inexhaustible stream of energy when it is tickled. However, my ability to conceive of these things doesn't allow them to exist because the laws of physics forbid their existence.

Oh, it can happen, if there is a being that is powerful enough to make it happen. God can make a cricket hop faster than the speed of light, cant he? So it is possible.

Back to Plantinga's argument. It seems to have the general form of:

"If A is the same as B, then all things true of A must be true of B and vice-versa. If A can exist when B doesn't, then there is at least one thing true of A that is not true of B. If this is the case, then A is not B."

Replace A and B with "mind" and "body" and we get his specific argument:

"If the mind is the same as the body, then all things true of the mind must be true of the body and vice-versa. If the mind can exist when the body doesn't, then there is at least one thing true of the mind that is not true of the body. If this is the case, then the mind is not body."

However, I can make different substitutions for A and B to "prove" that the serial killer David Berkowitz is not the Son of Sam:

"If David Berkowitz is the same as the Son of Sam, then all things true of Berkowitz must be true of the Son of Sam and vice-versa. If Berkowitz can exist when the Son of Sam doesn't, then there is at least one thing true of Berkowitz that is not true of the Son of Sam. If this is the case, then the David Berkowitz is not the Son of Sam."

1. There is only one President of the United States as of 4/11/14, and his name is Barack Obama

2. Barack Obama played basketball at the White House on 4/11/14

3. Therefore, the President played basketball at the White House on 4/11/14

 

[Parsimony]

Wait a minute, whose to say that they were wrong? Just because you can describe the conditions which a lightning phenomenon may occur does not mean that God is negated.

Nor am I saying that God is negated by the natural process by which lightning comes into being. God just made the natural laws that allow lightning to come into being. Same thing can be true of consciousness.

I am saying the chain of command may go "God -> Natural Law -> Phenomenon" instead of simply "God -> Phenomenon".

And for the life of me I just can't imagine a "natural" scenario/world at which dead inanimate matter is floating around and all of a sudden this matter becomes consciously aware.

Who ever said that inanimate dead matter spontaneously gains conscious awareness out of the blue?

I don't think so. First off, again, we may be able to figure out how one form of matter changed into another form of matter, but we won't be able to figure out the origin of all matter while postulating a material cause. It is a lost cause.

When I say something has a natural cause, I'm saying that it has a cause which can be linked to physical phenomena. Lightning is caused by the separation of electric charges between clouds and the ground. That is a physical explanation. Saying that God created natural laws that bring lightning into existence is different than saying God bypasses natural laws to create lightning from nothing using supernatural power.

No because just because you have a brain doesn't mean you have consciousness. So it would seem as if you have a chicken/egg problem. If scientists were able to go in a lab and create a brain from pre-existing material, at what point would consciousness come in to play?

You can ask at what point a fetal brain becomes conscious of its existence as well. It does at some point, even if we don't know exactly when that point is.

And since consciousness is only from a first-person view, who would be the consciouss brain? Who would the conscious brain belong too? A male? Female? Who?

The conscious brain would be itself. It would be male or female depending on what chromosomes it had in its cells (XX vs. XY).

So yeah, a chicken/egg problem. If the brain is before the mind, then in order for the mind to connect to the brain, the mind would already have to be "about" something.

Assuming that the mind has to connect with the brain is starting out with the assumption that the mind and brain are unconnected (i.e. different entities) at first and have to gain a connection. Your conclusion is in your premise.

Take your own personal mind, for example...your mind is full of thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, reflections, desires, etc. Now, if scientists were able to go in a lab and make a brain from pre-existing material, the brain doesn't have consciousness yet, right?

Depends on how well-developed it is.

In order for that brain to belong to "you", all of your thoughts, feelings, sensations, reflections, desires, etc, would have to corrolate with this brain. But on a naturalistic view, how could that possibly be done???

That brain can't be mine if I already have my own brain. If someone put all of my memories and desires into that brain, it would just be a clone of me, not the actual me. According to a naturalistic view, the brain would be itself in the same sense that my brain is myself.

So if the brain is before the mind, how can it ever reach the point of consciousness/awareness since it isn't already attached/corrolated with a person?

If by "person" you mean "mind" then please see my prior comment about the fetal brain.

If the mind comes before the brain, then the brain is not needed to explain the existence of the mind.

What do we have a brain for, then? Can the mind see, hear, think, feel and remember on its own? If so, then why are there parts of the brain which correspond to these functions (which can even be impaired if they are physically damaged)? Why do we have eyes and ears if the mind can see and hear on its own? How is it that physical actions (such as cutting the corpus callosum) can split one mind into two minds if the mind is safely tucked away in some immaterial realm?

Anencephalic infants are born without the cerebrum (forebrain). They never gain conscious awareness and either do not respond to stimuli or only respond with reflexes. If an anencephalic infant was born that was consciously aware, that would be pretty strong evidence that the cerebrum is not a necessary part in the generation of conscious awareness in humans. If this has ever happened, I am currently unaware of it. I find that pretty suggestive as to the cerebrum's role.

On naturalism, I just don't see a way to reconcile this. That is why on the theistic view, it makes sense...that you START off with a super-mind, which is God.

Argument from incredulity.

I am saying that since we have no scientific evidence supporting the position, there is no reasons to believe that it is true. So it is best that people who don't believe in intelligent design become agnostics. The problem is, people want to claim that naturalism/materialism/atheism is true, which are rather bold claims.

Do we have scientific evidence that the mind is supernatural? How can you gain scientific evidence of something supernatural?

They would have to be agnostics on a few empirical issues, that is all. But theism wouldn't stop there, since guys like Thomas Aquinas and St. Anslem was arguing for the existence of God without using science at all.

My argument isn't against theism.

I wont even bother because if that were true, then in order to tell if a person is lying about a crime, all we would have to do is examine their brain and see if they are telling the truth or not...but does this happen? No.

Because the technology isn't developed enough for that yet. The technology is developed well enough, however, to demonstrate that certain brain states correlate with particular thoughts. Crude images can also be extracted from the brain (as shown in the link). If thoughts were not in the brain, we wouldn't even be able to do that much.

I think it is. I can't think of a possible world at which a brain can be made and thoughts can become naturally correlated with the brain to make the brain the actual "person". It just can't happen.

"I can't imagine it therefore it can't happen" is the argument from incredulity.

Of course with God it is possible!!! My argument is against naturalism/atheism, which are views that God didn't do anything because he doesn't exist.

Perhaps I should be a bit more clear on my position here. I'm not arguing for pure naturalism or atheism. I am arguing that the mind might arise from from the brain due to natural laws written into the Universe by God.

But again, you have a problem. If a scientist was able to go in a lab and create a brain from preexisting material...then how would the thought of you pushing your baby brother on a swing be inputted into the brain??? Please explain this. If the mind and body are one, then they are inseperable, so if your brain is not being created simultaenously with the thought, then they cant be the same thing.

To say that the mind and the brain are the same is probably an improper way of me putting it. I do not think that the mind and the brain are identical any more than I think mass and gravity are identical. I'm saying that the mind may arise from brain activity. That is, that human consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.

Yet you cannot imagine a world at which a man can be married and unmarried at the same time. So does that mean that this is impossible?

Unless God decided that He wanted to make it possible, right?

Oh, it can happen, if there is a being that is powerful enough to make it happen. God can make a cricket hop faster than the speed of light, cant he? So it is possible.

If God can do anything, then He can also make the mind arise from the brain via natural laws. If God can make that possible, then there is no certainty that the human mind exists separately from the brain, as He may not have built the Universe in such a manner. If it's possible that He did that, then one cannot say with certainty that He made our brain and mind distinct.

1. There is only one President of the United States as of 4/11/14, and his name is Barack Obama

2. Barack Obama played basketball at the White House on 4/11/14

3. Therefore, the President played basketball at the White House on 4/11/14

That doesn't follow Plantinga's general form.

Also, do you think that the mind and soul are the same or are they different? Can one exist without the other?

 

[cottage]

Gen 9:25: That isn't God speaking, but Noah, so I don't know where you are going with that.

So is it true of God or not in respect of the highlighted sentence below?
Gen 18:25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Here is a confection of God’s impartial justice and partial justice:
Ezek 18:25 Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?
Deut 32:41If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.
Romans 2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God.

Ex 20:5: Is obviously speaking in terms of wicked generations that follow in the footsteps of their parents, particularly in this case where parents influenced their childrens religious positions, and even in the following verse 6 it states "....BUT showing love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments". If there is a "but", then whatever was before the "but" had to be contrary to what was said after the "but".

Exodus 20:5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

The above is not 'speaking of wicked generations tha follow in the footsteps of the parents.' This is a vicious, spiteful and vindictive God that curses the fathers' seed for daring not to acknowledge him so that the innocent children of subsequent generations will suffer.

Matt 13:12: This is taken out of context. Admittedly I had to re-read it a few times to understand what Jesus meant....


So it isn't Jesus taking away, it is the evil one that is taking away...and as you read down to verse 23 it appears as if the central message is that people who are slow to understand are the most vulnerable...because the little that they do understand may not be enough for their faith to be strengthened, so they may be more easily influenced to completey turn away from the faith than someone who does understand and is stronger in faith.

Precisely! So it is the unfortunates and the ‘vulnerable’, God’s own creatures that are left out in the cold because his justice only rewards those that praise and flatter him.

Is talking about honest, genuine seekers.

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Read the context!!! This is talking about those that are seeking him only as a result of there discontent with his wrath of judgment. Start at verse 22 and take it from there.

I did! Read v26 – v28. He is refusing those who doubted him: this loving God is vengeful and spiteful to them in their time of need:

“I in turn will laughwhen disasterstrikes you; I will mockwhen calamity overtakes you”

“—when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.”

“Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me”

Um, that is not a human sacrifice. The people that were killed were executed before the Lord, which is not the same as sacrificing a human life.

10So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen: and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my lord.

Sure sounds like a sacrifice to me. And I've found 28 intances of sacrifice in the Bible where it is being accepted or demanded.

So God decided not to destroy man because of man's wickedness like he previously done? How is that a contradiction?

Gen 8:21
21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

The very understanding of God is that unlike error-prone humans who lack wisdom and foresight the Almighty says what he means and means what he says, and that what is ordained or commanded will not and cannot be retracted or contradicted. If it were otherwise then God is not God, a logical absurdity that even the most committed theologian must acknowledge. ‘Never again will I curse the ground’ is a statement that is a clear as it could possibly be, containing the subject ‘ground’ and the predicate ‘curse’, conjoined with the personal pronoun ‘I’. The adverb ‘never’ means not ever, not at all and to no extent or degree. The statement is made in the most absolute terms.

There are right reasons to kill someone, and there are wrong reasons to kill someone. Ex 32:27 was ordered as an act of judgment by God. Ex 20:13 is talking about unjustifiable homicides, obviously.

"Thou shalt not kill" is as clear a statement as it is possible to be.

So, straight to genocide:


EX 32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.

So God blessed sister/brother unions at one point in history and outlawed it at another point in history. What is the contradiction?

No he did not! He blessed one incestuous relationship and denounced the other.

Obviously Gen 8:22 is talking about the world as a whole, as it was said after he had just flooded the entire earth with water. That did not mean that there would not be famine in at least some parts of the world.

Seed time and harvest were never to cease. Gen 8:22
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."

God was satisfied with his works at FIRST, until some of his creation began to sin, which resulted in the flood. Cmon now

There is a clear contradiction. God says he was dissatisfied with all the flesh upon the earth (Gen 6:12), and yet in Gen 1:31 he said it 'was good', which was before he created man and prior to the Fall. So he was dissatisfied with the 'beast of the ground and every fowl', but with which he was formerly satisfied!!

Obviously "rests" means to cease from working. It says nothing about being tired, so to make it seem as if the scripture implies that God was tired is disingenuous.

There is no ‘obviously’ and what I identified is not disingenuous: the passage is clear:

Ex 31:17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

If God rested for seven days because he needed to be refreshed, then he was weary or tired and took time out to recuperate. 'Refreshed' is to 'give new strength', 'find energy' or to be 'reinvigorated'.


.

 

[cottage]

Now who is begging the question?

It isn’t begging the question. You are claiming the Resurrection as an historical fact, i.e. something for which there is evidence in experience. I’m saying to you there is no factual evidence in experience of dead people coming to life. The dead do not live again in reality, and that is an undisputed fact even for believers. Not even the most fervent Christians believe they will die and then be restored to this life days afterwards to the joy and relief of their families.

Then you have problems. First off, we can certainly conceive of that happening, but only if there exists a being which has the power to allow it to happen. There isn't anything natural about a man being pieced back together to his original form after being blown to atoms. This would have to be described by the laws of nature, and there are no known laws of nature that allows such a thing.

So you can conceive of it happening, but not naturally, and if you can conceive of it happening naturally, then you should be able to explain how this can occur naturally...because if you can conceive of it happening naturally, then what you should be able to simulate the right circumstances and conditions which can allow such a thing to occur. But you can't, because it is unnatural.

Oh for heaven’s sake! Of course it is unnatural! People blown to smithereens and then being put back together again doesn’t happen and nor do the dead climb out of their graves – but neither of those things are absurdities, that is to say logically impossible. (I’ll be giving you an example of a logical impossibility, the argument that you asked for, in a separate post.) And where a state of affairs is not logically impossible does not mean there has to be a theoretical blow-by-blow explanation in naturalistic terms. It simply means there is no implied contradiction.

There was a point in time at which not even matter existed, cot.

Prior to the Big Bang nothing at all existed.

What are you talking about, cot?

What you said: ‘Either they believed it, or they were lying.’

Ok, so as the bible authors were writing the narratives, were they writing it as works of fiction? Were they lying when the wrote it? Or did they believe what they wrote? Now which is it?

It’s not ‘Which is it’ but either or both.

Ok, so you don't believe that they were lying. So therefore, if they believed what they claimed to be true, and they weren't lying, why would they believe it? Merely saying they "promoted a holy cause" is not saying much of anything, because the holy cause could be based on truth value. So if you admit that they weren't lying, and they believed what they claimed, then what would be the origin of their belief? Why would they believe it? You can't say they were believing what they were told, because that isn't the case...so why would they believe it if they didn't have reasons to believe it?

I’ve said the Bible is a work of fiction, and people believe what they are told (like you). And, again like you, people work hard to promote what they want to be believe is true. And while we all have to take things on trust to some extent, we accept that science and induction is not some inalienable Truth, regardless of what we would like to think, whereas religious faith simply won’t allow anything to count against it. The Bible writers weren’t necessarily lying or though there is certainly some very creative cartoon-like imagery in the Bible that makes the Harry Potter fantasies look rather lame by comparison. But I’m not altogether sure whether such inventiveness is to be considered as lies or whether an appeal to Hume’s statement can be accepted in mitigation, perhaps some of both. Either way there is duplicity involved.

I am using the historicity of the Resurrection as evidence to demonstrate WHICH God, not "a" god. Even if I weren't a Christian, I would be a theist.

‘God’ or gods, it doesn’t matter; you can’t presuppose either to argue for the conclusion.

You are saying:

If God exists he can perform miracles.
The Resurrection was a miracle.
The Resurrection is therefore true and god exists.

Miracles are highly improbable or impossible if they were claims of natural occurences. But they aren't, the claim is that God raised Jesus from the dead, and if God exists, that makes miracles very much probable and very much possible

.


Still begging the question! You are supposed to be arguing for the Resurrection as an historical fact to prove the existence of God. But you are saying ‘If God exists then miracles are probable’. And you’re claiming the (unproven) Resurrection was a miracle (and hence God exists). Fallacious and misleading!

My point is that half of the contradictions would have already been answered, so you won't be giving me anything new. The other half may not have already been answered, so I may have reach in my bag of tricks.

 

[cottage]

Yes please.

The world isn’t a necessary aspect of God, and while his eternal existence doesn’t demand an explanation, the finite world of creatures does require an explanation or a reason for its creation. And according to Christian Theism, God the creator wanted a personal relationship with his creation. However, there is logically only one agent that can profit or gain from this arrangement – and self-evidently that wouldn’t be the formerly non-existent creatures!

And I think it is clear from that statement that an eternally existent God requires something he does not already have, which is an immediate contradiction even before we consider the implied emotional content, for by no amount of sophistry can it be argued that the greatest conceivable being is at the same time, or at anytime, not wholly entire or in some way incomplete. And it is utterly absurd even to think of created beings gratifying the needs or emotional requirements of the Supreme Creator.

So the contradiction becomes evident because there is a supposed Supreme Being, who, by very definition of the term, is a complete entity that wants for nothing and yet intentionally brought the world of creatures into being. But since nothing existed prior to the act of creation there was nothing that could profit, gain, or benefit from the act other than God himself. Therefore if God intentionally created the world with a purpose, that could only be for his own sake or advantage (as described above). But as the Supreme Being is a concept already augmented without limit an act of creation is purposeless, which is absurd. And on that account there is no Supreme Being.

1. Assume God created the world
2. It is irrational to say a personal being freely and intentionally created the world for no purpose
3. He did create the world for a purpose
4. Therefore there was a need or purpose that benefitted God
5. The Supreme Being requires nothing since he is perfectly complete and entire
6. If 5 is not true then God is not the Supreme Being.
7. Premise 5 is true by definition
8. God had needs, desires, or unfulfilled wishes (4)
9. Therefore God is not the all-sufficient Supreme Being
If the premises are true then the conclusion that follows must also be true.
We can summarise the above argument like this:
P1: If God is the Supreme Being then he wants for nothing
P2: God wanted a relationship with his creation
Conclusion: God is not the Supreme Being

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Nor am I saying that God is negated by the natural process by which lightning comes into being. God just made the natural laws that allow lightning to come into being. Same thing can be true of consciousness.

Ok so the ancient ones were wrong in attributed lightning to God on any given circumstance, but they were right by acknowledging that God is ultimately behind the origins of lightning. Gotcha.

I am saying the chain of command may go "God -> Natural Law -> Phenomenon" instead of simply "God -> Phenomenon".

Then we should be able to explain the origin of mental states by natural law. You claim that some day we may be able to do so...I claim the opposite, that this is one of those things which lies beyond the realm of science, because thoughts themselves are not material, as no one can create a thought from scratch by using pre-existing materials.

Who ever said that inanimate dead matter spontaneously gains conscious awareness out of the blue?

Have you ever heard of naturalism? That is the view that nature is all there is and all there ever will be. If that is true, then wouldn't that imply that inanimate dead matter spontaneously gained conscious awareness out of the blue???

When I say something has a natural cause, I'm saying that it has a cause which can be linked to physical phenomena. Lightning is caused by the separation of electric charges between clouds and the ground. That is a physical explanation. Saying that God created natural laws that bring lightning into existence is different than saying God bypasses natural laws to create lightning from nothing using supernatural power.

Right, so in both cases, however you want to look at it, lightning occurred. So how are we able to determine whether a phenomena occurred naturally without God (assuming that God exists) or whether God caused it using supernatural power? My point was, when you make it seem like the ancient ones were wrong when they postulated God to explain lightning at any given circumstance, they may have be right. Hell, someone could have prayed for rain so that their crops would grow, and God could have answered the prayer by giving them rain, and thus...rain/thunder/lightning. Isn't this possible with God?

You can ask at what point a fetal brain becomes conscious of its existence as well. It does at some point, even if we don't know exactly when that point is.

And that is my point, it is a miracle. Conscious life is a miracle by God. If you start with inanimate matter, you will always have inanimate matter...it may become more complex over time, but it will never come to "life" and suddenly begin thinking, eating, breathing, talking, walking, playing, reproducing. Talk about having faith in something.

The conscious brain would be itself.

I am not sure what that means.

It would be male or female depending on what chromosomes it had in its cells (XX vs. XY).

So if scientists created the brain from scratch, how will they make the brain consciously aware, to begin thinking? How will they put the thought of "I want to go to college" in the brain so that the brain is thinking about going to college?? There mere THOUGHT, how can they get hold of the thought/concept, and place it into the brain???

Assuming that the mind has to connect with the brain is starting out with the assumption that the mind and brain are unconnected (i.e. different entities) at first and have to gain a connection. Your conclusion is in your premise.

Well, if the scientists are creating the brain, either they have to create the mind simultaneously with the brain, or one will have to precede the other. Those are the only two options. But lets go with the first option, that the mind and brain are connected. If they are creating the brain/mind simultaneous, how will they get certain thoughts into the brain? Where would they get the material to create the actual thoughts??? I can think of many scenarios where they can gather material to make the brain, but what I want to know is where would they get the material to make the thoughts? Do they have a storage full of "thoughts" that they can just go in the freezer, pull out a thought, and input it in to the brain??

But it gets worse. Even if they did have a storage full of thoughts, what is the mechanism that makes the thoughts? What form does the thoughts exist in? If it is material, then the material itself is thinking...without being connected to a brain. Makes no sense. You have problems, kry. Big problems.

Depends on how well-developed it is.

Well, give me a scenario/possible world at which it would be well-developed and explain how the thoughts would get implemented.

That brain can't be mine if I already have my own brain. If someone put all of my memories and desires into that brain, it would just be a clone of me, not the actual me. According to a naturalistic view, the brain would be itself in the same sense that my brain is myself.

Actually, it would be you. Your mind is personal only to YOU, and no two minds are exactly alike because no one shares the same feelings, desires, sensations, experiences, reflections, and even relationships, as far as you having siblings, and so on and so forth. So if all of these things that belong to you are in another brain, then that other brain is an exact replica of you.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

What do we have a brain for, then? Can the mind see, hear, think, feel and remember on its own?

Absolutely. What do you think God is? A mind, right? God can see, hear think, feel, and remember without a material brain, and we are created in his own imagine, right?

If so, then why are there parts of the brain which correspond to these functions (which can even be impaired if they are physically damaged)? Why do we have eyes and ears if the mind can see and hear on its own? How is it that physical actions (such as cutting the corpus callosum) can split one mind into two minds if the mind is safely tucked away in some immaterial realm?

That has to do with living in a physical world. God wanted his creation to operate in physical space-time and by doing so he created a correlation between the mind/soul and physical bodies. But they are not identical.

Anencephalic infants are born without the cerebrum (forebrain). They never gain conscious awareness and either do not respond to stimuli or only respond with reflexes.

If an anencephalic infant was born that was consciously aware, that would be pretty strong evidence that the cerebrum is not a necessary part in the generation of conscious awareness in humans. If this has ever happened, I am currently unaware of it. I find that pretty suggestive as to the cerebrum's role.

The same thing is the case for those that are brain dead. All that shows is that upon death or otherwise there may be an "un-correlation" between the physical body and the immaterial mind.

Argument from incredulity.

If that is the case then you should have very little problem responding to my above statements.

Do we have scientific evidence that the mind is supernatural?

Either the mind is natural, or supernatural, and those are the only two games in town. If one is negated, the other one wins by default.

How can you gain scientific evidence of something supernatural?

You don't, and I didn't.

My argument isn't against theism.

Mines is.

Because the technology isn't developed enough for that yet. The technology is developed well enough, however, to demonstrate that certain brain states correlate with particular thoughts. Crude images can also be extracted from the brain (as shown in the link). If thoughts were not in the brain, we wouldn't even be able to do that much.

What is crude images? Crude images of what? What does that mean? If my thoughts are inside my brain, and I can certainly see and know them, then why can't others see and know them as well, if they know the location. Why just me? We can all look inside someone's body and look at other things...we can all see the cells, dna strands, etc. So why can't we all see the thoughts?

"I can't imagine it therefore it can't happen" is the argument from incredulity.

Then once again, you shouldn't have any problem telling me where would scientists get the thoughts from to occupy the brain. I will wait.

Perhaps I should be a bit more clear on my position here. I'm not arguing for pure naturalism or atheism. I am arguing that the mind might arise from from the brain due to natural laws written into the Universe by God.

And I am arguing otherwise.

To say that the mind and the brain are the same is probably an improper way of me putting it. I do not think that the mind and the brain are identical any more than I think mass and gravity are identical. I'm saying that the mind may arise from brain activity. That is, that human consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.

I will wait.

Unless God decided that He wanted to make it possible, right?

Not even God can do the logically impossible.

If God can do anything, then He can also make the mind arise from the brain via natural laws. If God can make that possible, then there is no certainty that the human mind exists separately from the brain, as He may not have built the Universe in such a manner. If it's possible that He did that, then one cannot say with certainty that He made our brain and mind distinct.

I will wait.

That doesn't follow Plantinga's general form.

Yes it does. He said if something is true of the body that isn't true of the mind, then they are not identical.

And I said if the current President of the United States is Barack Obama, if they are identical, then if the President is dead, then Barack Obama is dead.

Also, do you think that the mind and soul are the same or are they different? Can one exist without the other?

I think they are the same. I don't think anyone can make a knock-down case for what a spirit/soul (used interchangeably) looks like...but what immediately comes to my mind is, the spirit is the immaterial form of your body. So my spirit would be the immaterial form of what my body looks like. Now, under this form, I still retain my conscious awareness. So I am a immaterial mind. So I think they are the same.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Here is what I am arguing. People in other religious traditions have seen, heard, experienced crazy things, according to their testimonies of events. That is true in the Mormon case, which you clearly do not believe in.

But the belief cannot undermine logic and reason. If the concept of God is absurd, then such a God cannot exist.

That being so, your argument for the historicity of the resurrection is undermined. If you argument is something like, we have these eyewitnesses, why would they make this stuff up etc., whether or not you think Mormonism is reasonable in the end it is a clear counterexample. Here you have these eyewitnesses to these events. They insisted they saw this stuff. Now we have an issue with simply accepting the basic Christian claims as correct.

Believing that God has a physical body and he is not eternal is in conflict with our background knowledge as a whole. Meanwhile, Christianity does not go against our background knowledge. Joseph Smith was either hallucinating or lying, since his claims go against what we already know.

 

[Parsimony]

I tire of responding to posts that are increasingly unwieldy in size. I give.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

I tire of responding to posts that are increasingly unwieldy in size. I give.

Understood. Thanks for the exchanges.

 

[Katzpur]

And Joseph Smith also believed that God was not always the Supreme being...

No, that's not what we believe.

and also has a body of flesh and bones.

But you're right about that.

This contradicts what we already know about the universe and is in fact absolutely false.

I don't think anybody really knows what's "absolutely false" or "absolutely true." We're all pretty much in the same boat there.

 

[brokensymmetry]

But the belief cannot undermine logic and reason. If the concept of God is absurd, then such a God cannot exist.



Believing that God has a physical body and he is not eternal is in conflict with our background knowledge as a whole. Meanwhile, Christianity does not go against our background knowledge. Joseph Smith was either hallucinating or lying, since his claims go against what we already know.

If your principle of historical evidence gathering is something like: "if eyewitness testimony then accept as strong evidence", then you are stuck here. The fact that you think the Mormon claims *can't* be true actually undermines your desire to use that principle in the Christian case. Here is a counter example about where the principle does *not* work. Every time you explain to me why you can't accept Mormonism as true you are just digging the hole deeper for the argument you want to make for Christianity.

Now you could modify the principle to something like: accept eyewitness testimony as evidence except in the case it violates my background knowledge. This is both weaker and potentially circular but it would at least take into account the counterexample I brought up for the stronger claim. Now I have to wonder why I ought to accept eyewitness testimony so easily when there's so much of it for cases that happen to violate your background knowledge.

And really, if you only accept evidence for stuff that you already accept is true, are you being rational?

 

[viole]

I am asking did anyone ever claimed that they saw these deities in reality? Did they speak to the deities and the deities speak back? Did they eat with them? Did they walk with him? Yes or no.

Are you kidding? The works of Homer contain a lot of apparitions of deities out of Olympus. We also have reports of sexual intercourses with immortal beings. That kind of trumps alternative boring reports from the competition of walking or eating with equally immortal beings

All you need is a book, as you said. And Homer shows that in two books and he has been followed through by latin authors like Virgil, who seems to confirm them.

Not to mention the absolute historical evidence of events and places mentioned in those books. Troy is a city in Turkey, and Rome is a city in Italy you can visit today.

Not even close.

Which part? That Jupiter worshippers conquered and subjugated Ja-Weh worshippers?

I think there is no doubt about that. It is even in your book.

If they didn't, your Christian logo would be a stone and not a cross, probably.

What believers and skeptics ever saw the gods that they worshipped? That is my question.

I am not sure I understand your question. What kind of god does a skeptic worship?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

No, that's not what we believe.

So please explain to me what you believe...as far as the nature of God is concerned?

I don't think anybody really knows what's "absolutely false" or "absolutely true." We're all pretty much in the same boat there.

We should appeal to the best explanation, and Christianity serves as the best explanation based on background evidence.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

It isn’t begging the question. You are claiming the Resurrection as an historical fact, i.e. something for which there is evidence in experience.

What I am saying is based on the facts we have regarding the Resurrection, that would make the claims of the Ressurection more plausible than not.

I’m saying to you there is no factual evidence in experience of dead people coming to life.

On the contrary there is evidence, as I've argued elsewhere, that not only is it possible for the dead to come back to life, but life does not end when the physical body is deceased, based on mind/body dualism.

The dead do not live again in reality

You do not know this, nor does the dead living again based on God hypothesis violate any law of logic. So you simply do not know whether the dead can live again, and you certainly don't have an argument to back up the statement.

, and that is an undisputed fact even for believers. Not even the most fervent Christians believe they will die and then be restored to this life days afterwards to the joy and relief of their families.

Well, I don't know about days afterwards, but Christians believe that one day we will be resurrected from the graves.

Oh for heaven’s sake! Of course it is unnatural! People blown to smithereens and then being put back together again doesn’t happen and nor do the dead climb out of their graves

And the point is, if God exists then it can certainly happen. That is the point...all of these things that you claim doesn't happen or can't happen COULD actually happen if there exist a being which has the power to make it happen. And that is EXACTLY what Christians believe.

– but neither of those things are absurdities, that is to say logically impossible. (I’ll be giving you an example of a logical impossibility, the argument that you asked for, in a separate post.) And where a state of affairs is not logically impossible does not mean there has to be a theoretical blow-by-blow explanation in naturalistic terms. It simply means there is no implied contradiction.

I will wait.

Prior to the Big Bang nothing at all existed.

And?

What you said: ‘Either they believed it, or they were lying.’

Right.

I’ve said the Bible is a work of fiction, and people believe what they are told (like you).

I don't believe everything that I am told. I don't believe that an animal will ever produce a different kind of animal (macroevolution), nor do I believe that inanimate matter suddenly "came to life" (abiogenesis).

And, again like you, people work hard to promote what they want to be believe is true.

By doing what? Telling lies? Some do...some don't. Some actually report the facts.

And while we all have to take things on trust to some extent, we accept that science and induction is not some inalienable Truth, regardless of what we would like to think, whereas religious faith simply won’t allow anything to count against it. The Bible writers weren’t necessarily lying or though there is certainly some very creative cartoon-like imagery in the Bible that makes the Harry Potter fantasies look rather lame by comparison.

Believing that inanimate matter suddenly came to life and that animals produce something other than what they are...that is worse than any abracadabra trick I ever saw.

‘God’ or gods, it doesn’t matter; you can’t presuppose either to argue for the conclusion.

You are saying:

If God exists he can perform miracles.
The Resurrection was a miracle.
The Resurrection is therefore true and god exists.

The origins of the disciples belief are best explained by their claims being actually true.

Still begging the question! You are supposed to be arguing for the Resurrection as an historical fact to prove the existence of God.
But you are saying ‘If God exists then miracles are probable’. And you’re claiming the (unproven) Resurrection was a miracle (and hence God exists). Fallacious and misleading!

Not at all. I argue for the Resurrection after first establishing whether it is at all possible for God to exist. After that, then I examine the historical evidence for the Resurrection. Then I draw the conclusion that it is more probable than not that God exists, and he has revealed himself to us through Jesus Christ.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

If your principle of historical evidence gathering is something like: "if eyewitness testimony then accept as strong evidence", then you are stuck here.

What I am saying is; if someone sincerly believes something, then there must be reasons why they believe what they believe. The only question is, what could be the reason? In the case of the disciples, alternative reasons like lying, hallucinations, stolen body...those are all bad reasons.

The fact that you think the Mormon claims *can't* be true actually undermines your desire to use that principle in the Christian case. Here is a counter example about where the principle does *not* work. Every time you explain to me why you can't accept Mormonism as true you are just digging the hole deeper for the argument you want to make for Christianity.

Not at all. My point is, Mormonism, unlike the Christian God, is based on a logically incoherent God. I base that on the fact that Mormons believe that God is a material man. This contradicts what we already know about the material world. So to claim that someone seen such a God, a God that can not exist based on what we already know, is something that cannot be taken as a serious eyewitness account.

This kind of reminds me of a First 48 episode, where an alleged "eyewitness" was asked to pick out an alleged suspect in a picture lineup. In the lineup was a guy that was deceased, and the witness picked the deceased guy in the lineup. Since the detectives already KNEW that the guy who was picked was already deceased, they could not rely on the eyewitness testimony. The same thing appears to be the case with the Mormon view of God.

Now, skeptics have been trying for centuries to find a flaw regarding concept of the Christian God...they attempt to do the same thing that I just did with the Mormon God, is find some kind of incoherency based on the concept alone, and all of these attempts have FAILED regarding Christianity. But the same cannot be said with the Mormon God.

Now you could modify the principle to something like: accept eyewitness testimony as evidence except in the case it violates my background knowledge. This is both weaker and potentially circular but it would at least take into account the counterexample I brought up for the stronger claim. Now I have to wonder why I ought to accept eyewitness testimony so easily when there's so much of it for cases that happen to violate your background knowledge.

And really, if you only accept evidence for stuff that you already accept is true, are you being rational?

Let me just break down the case briefly, using arguments from history..

1. We have historical evidence that there was a man named Jesus who lived in 1st Century Palenstine.

2. We have historical evidence that Jesus was crucified.

3. We have historical evidence that Jesus was buried in a tomb.

4. We have historical evidence that Jesus' tomb was discovered empty by his women followers.

5. We have historical evidence from both BELIEVERS and SKEPTICS that they saw the Resurrected Jesus post-mortem.

That is the case, and there are arguments for each point. Now what would be the different between what the disciples saw and what Joseph Smith saw? The difference is...gods based on illogical concepts cannot exist and therefore cannot be said to be seen...but maybe Smith was hallucinating? You can say that about the disciples, but that would not explain the empty tomb nor will it explain the belief of former skeptics, James and Paul.

So there you have it.

 

[Parsimony]

That is the case, and there are arguments for each point. Now what would be the different between what the disciples saw and what Joseph Smith saw? The difference is...gods based on illogical concepts cannot exist and therefore cannot be said to be seen...but maybe Smith was hallucinating?

I think cottage's point was that the "it was written as history" argument is insufficient evidence in itself. The Bible and the Book of Mormon are both written as historical accounts. If either one is wrong then the claim of "it was written as history" fails to be a sufficient explanation because it means that something written as historical that claims itself to be fact can still be wrong. One then must use other evidence to support his or her claims.

 

[brokensymmetry]

What I am saying is; if someone sincerly believes something, then there must be reasons why they believe what they believe. The only question is, what could be the reason? In the case of the disciples, alternative reasons like lying, hallucinations, stolen body...those are all bad reasons.



Not at all. My point is, Mormonism, unlike the Christian God, is based on a logically incoherent God. I base that on the fact that Mormons believe that God is a material man. This contradicts what we already know about the material world. So to claim that someone seen such a God, a God that can not exist based on what we already know, is something that cannot be taken as a serious eyewitness account.

This kind of reminds me of a First 48 episode, where an alleged "eyewitness" was asked to pick out an alleged suspect in a picture lineup. In the lineup was a guy that was deceased, and the witness picked the deceased guy in the lineup. Since the detectives already KNEW that the guy who was picked was already deceased, they could not rely on the eyewitness testimony. The same thing appears to be the case with the Mormon view of God.

Now, skeptics have been trying for centuries to find a flaw regarding concept of the Christian God...they attempt to do the same thing that I just did with the Mormon God, is find some kind of incoherency based on the concept alone, and all of these attempts have FAILED regarding Christianity. But the same cannot be said with the Mormon God.



Let me just break down the case briefly, using arguments from history..

1. We have historical evidence that there was a man named Jesus who lived in 1st Century Palenstine.

2. We have historical evidence that Jesus was crucified.

3. We have historical evidence that Jesus was buried in a tomb.

4. We have historical evidence that Jesus' tomb was discovered empty by his women followers.

5. We have historical evidence from both BELIEVERS and SKEPTICS that they saw the Resurrected Jesus post-mortem.

That is the case, and there are arguments for each point. Now what would be the different between what the disciples saw and what Joseph Smith saw? The difference is...gods based on illogical concepts cannot exist and therefore cannot be said to be seen...but maybe Smith was hallucinating? You can say that about the disciples, but that would not explain the empty tomb nor will it explain the belief of former skeptics, James and Paul.

So there you have it.

It is a fact Joseph Smith existed. It is a fact his followers claimed to have individual and *group visions*, witness miracles such as healings and so forth- on more than one occasion! It is a fact they went on to establish a new religion. Now you want to dismiss it because you don't agree with their conclusions. This is really becoming special pleading.

Besides that, I think you'd be hard pressed to firmly establish all of your points. Why should I believe the tomb that Jesus was actually put in was empty?

Here's the problem. The mormon claims are not actually logically impossible. You can argue the fail to fulfill the typical natural theological arguments for the existence of God, but so what? Now you are implicitly saying that before we can proceed we have to accept those first?

Your argument becomes: accept miraculous claims when reported unless it disagrees with my theological viewpoint. Hopefully you can see why I'm less than impressed by this line of reasoning.

 

[idav]

Now, skeptics have been trying for centuries to find a flaw regarding concept of the Christian God...they attempt to do the same thing that I just did with the Mormon God, is find some kind of incoherency based on the concept alone, and all of these attempts have FAILED regarding Christianity. But the same cannot be said with the Mormon God.



Let me just break down the case briefly, using arguments from history..

1. We have historical evidence that there was a man named Jesus who lived in 1st Century Palenstine.

2. We have historical evidence that Jesus was crucified.

3. We have historical evidence that Jesus was buried in a tomb.

4. We have historical evidence that Jesus' tomb was discovered empty by his women followers.

5. We have historical evidence from both BELIEVERS and SKEPTICS that they saw the Resurrected Jesus post-mortem.

That is the case, and there are arguments for each point. Now what would be the different between what the disciples saw and what Joseph Smith saw? The difference is...gods based on illogical concepts cannot exist and therefore cannot be said to be seen...but maybe Smith was hallucinating? You can say that about the disciples, but that would not explain the empty tomb nor will it explain the belief of former skeptics, James and Paul.

So there you have it.

As far as christain concepts its catholics or mormons cause they are claiming to origin from jesus. As far as a god concept physical vs spiritual is semantics. Spirit is a substance. The mormon concepts makes perfect sense via multiverse theory. We dont know what is beyond our universe but the clues are in nature. What is beyond is eternity, ultimate power, that much is agreed I think for most religious god believers. Maximum power doesnt need to be so ridiculous that god would contradict himself but then that puts a limit. Damned if you do damned if you dont.

We dont have witnesses for the ressurection we have narratives of a story. One thing interesting is the form of always writing about jesus as if one heard him first hand. Jesus was likely a busy fella, why wouldnt he try to hit paul joseph the ancient americas, just to anyone who might even grasp it a little. But then who dont we believe, why is one intepretation better than another when they really all conflict or are different. Different accounts of the same person having jesus talking differently and having different details.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

I think cottage's point was that the "it was written as history" argument is insufficient evidence in itself.

The Bible and the Book of Mormon are both written as historical accounts. If either one is wrong then the claim of "it was written as history" fails to be a sufficient explanation because it means that something written as historical that claims itself to be fact can still be wrong. One then must use other evidence to support his or her claims.

That is fine...the question is how are the claims best explained? And a positive case can be made in favor of the notion that Jesus rose from the dead. You may not believe it, and I don't expect just anyone to believe it. Only a select few, and I happen to be one of those few.