Mickiel's proof of God.

[logician]

Where is consciousness in the human body? Its not inside our heads, only physiological tissue is in there. Its not in our hearts. In reality, consciousness has no location whatever except as we imagine it. Some just imagine it to be in their head. You can move your consciousness into the next room if you wanted, or into another house, as you think of it being there. Being conscious is using certain parts of your brain inside of your head, but when your riding a bike, the riding does not go on inside your head, it has a definte geographical location, whereas consciousness does not.

This is proof of Gods existance, because we know we are conscious, but we, nor science, can locate our consciousness.

Peace.

Then remove your head, it should not affect your consciousness.

 

[Ardeaa]

The "consciousness" argument is just to make certain people feel good about their rape and abuse of animals and this planet. If we humans are the only ones who possess this vaunted "consciousness," it must mean we are better and more worthy, and that we have dominion over everything. Therefore, we are free to destroy it to our heart's content, never getting our heads out of our butts to realize that we are part of all this cycle of life, and our destruction of the planet is ironically going to be our downfall

 

[MSizer]

This is silly. Even the world's most elite conciousness experts can't agree exactly on what conciousness is, but they certainly all agree that it is not what you describe Mickiel. I personally like Kristof Koch. He's a contributor to Scientific american, so you can read his conciousness essays there. You'll very quickly learn that your concpet of conciousness is false.

 

[Amill]

Animals are not aware that airplanes are planes which fly from engines. They are not aware of human style of clothing, or what time it is. Animals are not conscious of what year it is or what city they are in. They don't know what sickness is or why it is. They don't realize when they are in a zoo and what a zoo is, or why humans attack them. They are not conscious. Learning tricks is not a sign of consciousness, nor is mating, nor is eating and feeding their young, all that is instincts, instincts are not consciousness. Even when humans react from instincts, they are not using their consciousness.

To be honest with you, it is you who do not understand what consciousness is.

Peace.

So consciousness is the ability to represent objects and actions with symbols, and be able to correctly interpret them? Is that your definition? A man kept in a basement his entire life without ever learning how to speak, read, or write does not have consciousness? Basically everything you described about consciousness is something that is learned through symbols. You're basically saying that consciousness is the ability to "talk" to oneself or something? What if man hadn't developed complex communication yet? And what is the difference between learning a trick(aka associating some form of command as an action) and learning the definition of a word? Isn't that how communication starts...associating commands/symbols/faces to objects, actions, or emotions? Isn't that exactly what a dog does when commanded to roll over?

That's fine if you want to define consciousness as the ability to use symbols and sounds while thinking to oneself, but you can't expect everyone to have the same definition.

 

[Tiberius]

Romance is a proof of Gods ability to program his creations with incredible powers of feeling and understanding those feelings.

What evidence do you have to show me that this is true?

 

[cottage]

God is not personal to me, I don't know God or understand him, how many times must I say this. I do not worship God, I worship nothing. I would like to know God, I believe in him because it makes perfect sense to me to do so. Everything I add up, equals to a God. And I totally disagree that only in religion does sin has a meaning. I am not in religion, not confined by it, but I agree with some things they understand, and I agree that sin exist, but not because they have defined it, but the bible has defined it. I believe in the bible, and religion does not own the bible, you just think they do, thus you must define me by religion, because you think religion holds a monopoly on the bible, so you cannot accept a person like me being outside of religion and totally free from it.

But thats your problem, not mine. I am free from religion, and nobodys attempt to define me can enslave me to religion.

Peace.

You are attempting to make a distinction between the Bible and religious belief. The Bible is a system of human thought, a religious work that has at its central premise the existence of a supernatural being who has done and will do certain things. Of course you are free to accept or believe some of the Bible or parts of the Bible, but to say you 'believe in the Bible' is to make a religious statement. That is most certainly not the same as someone who acknowledges the concept of Supreme Being but does not attribute more to the possibility than is necessary to the concept. It is actually a self-contradiction to say 'I believe in God, but I'm not religious'. But there is no contradiction in saying ' I'm not religious but I believe that there might be a God'.

Btw, you are either using the term 'sin' colloquially, or you are using the term in its religious sense. It's one or the other.

 

[strange_lupe]

Lower animals show the same type of care and protectiveness of their mates and offspring. Love is just a word for an instinct that has maybe outlived its evolutionary purpose. Not to belittle human bonds, but it seems clear to me that feelings of affection are part of the pattern of nature and therefore evidence of nothing supernatural.

Look at the love of a dog for his master: God did not engineer that. Cavemen did.

 

[strange_lupe]

Monkeys are not conscious beings, only humans are. Conscious beings can speak languages and plan for today and tommorrow, while recalling the past and remembering it while they write it down. Conscious people can get on computers and communicate with each other, monkeys can't do that because they are not conscious.

Peace.

What about our fellow great apes who can understand language, even written symbols to some degree, who can plan, communicate with one another, form relationships, even pass a culture down to their children? Meanwhile computer programs can do all the things you cite as hallmarks of consciousness.

Consciousness and intelligence are not synonymous. A dog, when catching a frisbee, performs calculations you wouldn't even know how to attempt on paper. An insect colony appears to make decisions impossible for any individual member. The cognitive brain facilitates intelligence and therefore survival. The ability to adapt to change and store information about the world is not a uniquely human trait at all. It is, in fact, the premise of all life.

 

[cottage]

Romance is a proof of Gods ability to program his creations with incredible powers of feeling and understanding those feelings. The urge to communicate with your affections, and communicate them to the one of your affection. The orginal purpose God put that in humans is because one day he will use that to open communications with us, but we can't do that until he opens us up to his all consuming Love for us. Once we understand Gods Love for us, we are forever his. We just don't now understand him and his passion for us, BECAUSE he has not created an environment condusive to that on earth.

Oh some people think he has, but I disagree with them, he has not. Earths environment defintely shows that selfishness is one way to get ahead. Greed and power are ways to get ahead. Love is not a way to get ahead. There may be some small examples of that, but they are exceptions.

Peace.

Love and selfishness are in essence the same thing. I shall await your response to this statement before providing examples.

 

[Thief]

You are attempting to make a distinction between the Bible and religious belief. The Bible is a system of human thought, a religious work that has at its central premise the existence of a supernatural being who has done and will do certain things. Of course you are free to accept or believe some of the Bible or parts of the Bible, but to say you 'believe in the Bible' is to make a religious statement. That is most certainly not the same as someone who acknowledges the concept of Supreme Being but does not attribute more to the possibility than is necessary to the concept. It is actually a self-contradiction to say 'I believe in God, but I'm not religious'. But there is no contradiction in saying ' I'm not religious but I believe that there might be a God'.

Btw, you are either using the term 'sin' colloquially, or you are using the term in its religious sense. It's one or the other.

There is confusion here...

I, for one, make no practice of religion.
I am not encumbered by the ritual or prayer of any faith.

However, I believe in God, and have cause to do so....not because 'the Bible told me so'.
And sin is that, which can separate you from God. It is not altogether, a broken rule imposed by the 'church'.

 

[Thief]

In spite of post #125, there seems an ongoing notion that comparisons between Man, and the animal kingdom can be used to note that God does exist.
That won't work.

Noting the abilities of animals, is pointless. There are many things they do, of which they do better.
Ongoing comparisons can only point out the human ability to be less than they are.
Animals are bigger, faster, stronger, better organized, and they respond with the best of their abilities under any given situation.
Their relationship to this life, is better than ours.

We humans, by our ability to dominate, abuse and misuse, every resource at our disposal. We are not greater than the animal kingdom.

So.....'what is Man, that God is mindful of him?'

As for proving "God" by saying we are self-aware?
Only if God is self-aware, and able to say....'I am'.

 

[dorsk188]

I think if either one of them didnot exist, then neither would God.

So, to be clear: if there were no atheists, then God would not exist.

If everyone believed in God, then God would not exist.

Does that mean that, because no one really believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, thus we are all Apastafarians. Thus he doesn't exist. But if someone starts to believe in him, then the FSM would exist?

Mick, you can't define reality by contradiction. For example, the USA has two major political parties, but not because they're opposites. There was a time when there were more than two major parties. And a time when there were no parties. Just because there are two now, and they appear to be opposing each other, doesn't mean it has any kind of cosmic meaning. A coin having "two sides" isn't a meaningful statement about the universe. It's just a very short cylinder that we decorate in various ways. A cube has six sides, but that doesn't mean that EVERYTHING has six sides. There is no opposite of hate. There is no opposite of love. There is no opposite of a thumb. There is no opposite of helium (well, that one maybe).

Things just are, they're not arranged in an orderly pattern, or a neat spectrum. Entertaining any kind of belief in literal dualism is a vast oversimplification and misunderstanding of reality.

 

[cottage]

There is confusion here...

I, for one, make no practice of religion.
I am not encumbered by the ritual or prayer of any faith.

However, I believe in God, and have cause to do so....not because 'the Bible told me so'.
And sin is that, which can separate you from God. It is not altogether, a broken rule imposed by the 'church'.

The point here is that you believe in God, not that you simply believe there is a God. So your belief is religious, that is to say held from faith and not purely from philosophical or scientific standpoints. Neither the Bible nor prayer is necessary for religion, incidentally. And if sin is that 'which can separate you from God', then, by your own admission, it is nothing if not a term with religious implications.

 

[Amill]

Is our self awareness even that different from other animal's awareness? I guess we have no way of knowing, but animals can distinguish themselves from their environment...so...Isn't that sort of self-awareness? Would we be "self-aware" if we were not able to contemplate our existence in words? If we had no language, wouldn't we be the same as animals as we distinguish ourselves from the rest of our environment?

 

[Atreyu]

Animals are not aware that airplanes are planes which fly from engines. They are not aware of human style of clothing, or what time it is. Animals are not conscious of what year it is or what city they are in. They don't know what sickness is or why it is. They don't realize when they are in a zoo and what a zoo is, or why humans attack them. They are not conscious. Learning tricks is not a sign of consciousness, nor is mating, nor is eating and feeding their young, all that is instincts, instincts are not consciousness. Even when humans react from instincts, they are not using their consciousness.

To be honest with you, it is you who do not understand what consciousness is.

Peace.

Funny, because I clearly wrote the actual definition for you. It has nothing to do with being aware of airplanes. Monkeys and other animals do make decisions based on conscious rather than just instnct.

 

[MSizer]

To be honest with you, it is you who do not understand what consciousness is.

Peace.

No actually, you are wrong. Have you ever taken a first-aid course?

Do you know what the AVPU scale is? It's the standard "conciousness" scale used by medics to asess a person.

A = Victim is Alert
V = Victim Responds to Voice Stimulus
P = Victim responds to Pain Stimulus
U = Victim is Unconcious

Do you not think you could assess a chimp or a bee by the AVPU scale? Yes, you can. Therefore, they are concious (exept if maybe they were just ejected through a windshield, in which case they might be a "P" or a "U" on the AVPU scale)

 

[Thief]

The point here is that you believe in God, not that you simply believe there is a God. So your belief is religious, that is to say held from faith and not purely from philosophical or scientific standpoints. Neither the Bible nor prayer is necessary for religion, incidentally. And if sin is that 'which can separate you from God', then, by your own admission, it is nothing if not a term with religious implications.

Complete misconception, and you make far too much assumption of my belief.
I do believe in God.
For cause of science and philosophy.

Sin can happen to anyone.....with or without religion.

 

[cottage]

Complete misconception, and you make far too much assumption of my belief.
I do believe in God.
For cause of science and philosophy.

Sin can happen to anyone.....with or without religion.

Actually, I'm assuming nothing. I'm simply responding to your own words. You say you believe in God. That is a religious affirmation.

Please explain what you mean by sin, using examples?

 

[Thief]

Well okay, if you skip over the primary definitions, all the way down the list, to a generalized belief in a supreme Being, then fine....you could say I'm religious.

But MOST people would then ask my affiliation of which I have NONE.
I don't hang out with church goers.
Nor do I perform prayer and ritual as they would do.

I lean to cause and effect, for the proving of God's existence.
It works for me.

As for proving God by making discussion over consciousness.....no.

As for people getting separated from God for the problem of sin?
A sin against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Rebuttal technique can demonstrate, such things.

 

[cottage]

Well okay, if you skip over the primary definitions, all the way down the list, to a generalized belief in a supreme Being, then fine....you could say I'm religious.

But MOST people would then ask my affiliation of which I have NONE.
I don't hang out with church goers.
Nor do I perform prayer and ritual as they would do.

I lean to cause and effect, for the proving of God's existence.
It works for me.

As for proving God by making discussion over consciousness.....no.

As for people getting separated from God for the problem of sin?
A sin against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Rebuttal technique can demonstrate, such things.

I agree that one can certainly be religious without having to worship or belong to a particular belief system, and even those of the organised religions often adopt an a la carte attitude to their chosen faith.

But to say 'a sin is against the spirit will not be forgiven' is just another example of religious belief. It is propositional, and it is a claim that has no demonstrable or factual truth.