Nontheist

[PureX]

You are critical of the usage of others, and then don't offer what you think is proper. Is that logical?

I have explained the proper usage of these terms, and why it is the proper usage MANY, MANY, MANY times on many different threads on this site. To you and to others. But you don't read to understand. You only read to deny and dismiss. So you never actually see what's there, and for me to keep repeating it would just be a waste of time.

"Objective existence" as a two word phrase is a concept, but the concept refers to actual, existing things.

No, it actually does not. The term refers to an idea you hold in your head about what you think exists, as opposed to what you think does not exist. And in your case that determination is entirely based on material physicality. Which is an absurd philosophical bias that you refuse to recognize or give up.

Hobbits and Elves have no objective existence, but humans do.

It's a completely pointless and meaningless designation based on material physicality being used to determine existence. Yet for some strange reason you seem to imagine that this designation is of the utmost importance.

 

[lukethethird]

No one cares what believers believe. That is their own business. This discussion is about theism, not what some believers believe. You asked me to explain "God" in a theism context. That's what I'm doing. And it has nothing to do with anyone's belief. It has to do with the profoundly unknown, and our human fear of the unknown, and how most humans choose to negotiate with the unknown so as to deal with their fear of it. That's theism. That's what the God ideal is about, and for. And it's a cognitive phenomenon, not a "thing".

They exist as much more then that. They are part of a universal human cognitive phenomenon. And please keep in mind that this phenomenon is just as grounded is human physicality as every other human cognitive phenomena is. We cognate God the same way we cognate infinity, or perfection, or randomocity, or luck. These are all cognitive meta-ideas that we use to develop and evaluate our other ideas of existence. They are not "things". They are cognitive phenomena. So please stop asking for evidence of their "thing-ness". There is none, because these kinds of cognitive meta-ideas aren't things.

There is no "world external to the self". That is a delusion peddled by philosophical materialism. Apart from cognition, there is no "world". There is no "self". There is no God. There is no anything. "I think, therefor I am." "I don't think, therefor ... nothing."

No gods existing in nothingness is of no consequence, whatever. Yet for some reason you keep asserting this as if it's of the utmost importance. When it can't possibly be of any import at all.

Atheists and religion have nothing to do with theism.

Solving mysteries regarding physical interactions is all well and good, but it's not really solving the great and profound mystery of existence, and of our being a part of it. Nor will it ever. And if you think it will, you have fallen into the delusion of scientism.

There are questions that there are no answers to, such as why something rather than nothing? Why not a vast vacuum of nothingness rather than all these galaxies and life itself? That is certainly a great mystery that will never be solved but it is not a fear and it's not theism and it's not scientism, it's a plain outright mystery, an unknown.

 

[F1fan]

I'm not claiming design. I'm claiming naturally occuring intelligence.

You already claimed planning and forethought, so you can't weasel out of it. Unless you don;t understand your own thinking, a plan is a formal design for some outcome, whether a battle plan, or plan for a building. And this still doesn;t help you justify any sort of intelligence when there are so many examples of failure in evolution. You are excessively vague about what this intelliegcne is, and why it is necessary.

The errors would be unintentional. Intelligence has to work with natural constraints and limitations. The errors and defects are side effects.

Not a very intelligent work product. You claim an intelligence guides evolution so why aren't mosquitos being guided out of existence as they spread Zika and Malaria? I go back to my suggestion that your intelligence is a monket throwing dice.

I differentiate blind reaction from sophisticated function. It's not sophisticated in the sense of being perfect and ideal, it's sophisticated in the sense that it allows synchronized coherent function of the body. There's only so much time, and physics to work with for intelligence to work naturally. If the supernatural existed then you could expect perfection, but I don't defend that.

Excuses. And no evidence for any intelligence.

Blind chemical reaction falls short of explaining human form and function. Blind chemical reaction produces fire, not functional systems.

Why mention blind at all? This is anthropomorphism. Science explains how nature works without introducing any assumptions of intent. You mention blind, and that implies there is vision by some proper actor (very sneaky). You are in essence trying to force your intelligence into significance here with deceptive wording. Where's the actual evidence?

 

[F1fan]

I have explained the proper usage of these terms, and why it is the proper usage MANY, MANY, MANY times on many different threads on this site. To you and to others.

The usual criticsm against your explanations is them being overly vague. You have criticized the usage of others many, many, many times, including them using published dictionary definitions. You seem oblivious to your prefernce of being confused and absorbed in self-manufactured mystery than truth. Your approach does help justify religious belief since they lack facts and coherent explanations.

But you don't read to understand.

You don't often write true statements, we understand that, and you don;t like it because we won't just take your word for it. You don;t offer evidence to support your claims/beliefs, and that's on you.

You only read to deny and dismiss.

Like what you do to reject common definitions of words? Yeah...

So you never actually see what's there, and for me to keep repeating it would just be a waste of time.

See what's there? Like what's in your imagination that you claim is real, but can't offer evidence as existing? Yeah, keep being critical of critical thinking.

No, it actually does not. The term refers to an idea you hold in your head about what you think exists, as opposed to what you think does not exist. And in your case that determination is entirely based on material physicality. Which is an absurd philosophical bias that you refuse to recognize or give up.

And notice you can't demonstrate anything exists that isn't material. So how am I wrong in not being convinced of your assumptions and beliefs? You gripe that we don't take your word for these things, yet offer not a single scrap of evidence why you are correct.

It's a completely pointless and meaningless designation based on material physicality being used to determine existence.

You don;t like it because it doesn't help you justify belief in what is likley imaginary. You aren't privileged in some unique ability to sense an immaterial, you're just mad because most critical thinkers don't accept the claim that you theists/believers assume, that being undetectable phenomenon beyond the material. You have not a single explanation as to why you think something exists beyond the material universe except old religious texts. That's it. No observations, no tests, no evidence, just old traditions of belief. THAT'S what is pointless and meaningingless to understanding what is true about how things are objectively.

Yet for some strange reason you seem to imagine that this designation is of the utmost importance.

Critical thinkers follow evidence, and use definitions that best describe the word and what it represents. Theists have their own illusory world that is build on words and meanings, but lacks evidence. Religious belief is a conspiracy of thought, and this is what it relies on, not evidence.

 

[osgart]

You already claimed planning and forethought, so you can't weasel out of it. Unless you don;t understand your own thinking, a plan is a formal design for some outcome, whether a battle plan, or plan for a building. And this still doesn;t help you justify any sort of intelligence when there are so many examples of failure in evolution. You are excessively vague about what this intelliegcne is, and why it is necessary.

Not a very intelligent work product. You claim an intelligence guides evolution so why aren't mosquitos being guided out of existence as they spread Zika and Malaria? I go back to my suggestion that your intelligence is a monket throwing dice.

Excuses. And no evidence for any intelligence.

Why mention blind at all? This is anthropomorphism. Science explains how nature works without introducing any assumptions of intent. You mention blind, and that implies there is vision by some proper actor (very sneaky). You are in essence trying to force your intelligence into significance here with deceptive wording. Where's the actual evidence?

Well a non living intelligence wouldn't necessarily have an actor or agent. It would be more like a machine that learns and adapts.

 

[F1fan]

Well a non living intelligence wouldn't necessarily have an actor or agent. It would be more like a machine that learns and adapts.

So what form does the intelligence you are advocating for exist in? It's not a living organism, and it can't be a machine because that itself would require an intelligence to design and build it, so what are you left with except this intelligence being imagined in your head?

Let's note that you are ignoring most of my questions, and that is because you have no answers. So if you can't explain that your suggestion of an intelligence is then is your view learning and adapting? How close are you to acknowledging it isn't a very sound idea?

 

[osgart]

So what form does the intelligence you are advocating for exist in? It's not a living organism, and it can't be a machine because that itself would require an intelligence to design and build it, so what are you left with except this intelligence being imagined in your head?

Let's note that you are ignoring most of my questions, and that is because you have no answers. So if you can't explain that your suggestion of an intelligence is then is your view learning and adapting? How close are you to acknowledging it isn't a very sound idea?

An agent would be far removed from the making of its learning and adapting program. It may be that we have a different definition of intelligence.

I find the signs of forethought and planning to be obvious in the forms and functions of living things. It's all on the fly though. I suggest there is a deeper reality. I couldn't possibly have all the answers but I do see forethought, planning, adaptation, self organizing program at work.

At some point there is brute fact about existence. As intelligent as humans have become I expect the rest of existence to have such properties.

Benevolent goals and purposes are not a prerequisite of intelligence. Memory, reason, understanding abilities are evidence of phenomenon that didn't arrive by blind reaction.

I'm always amazed that people think that it's all blind reaction when so much stares us in the face. A living entity that has memory, reason, and understanding, recall, will is not blindly built. There is ingenuity in those capabilities even occuring.

 

[Windwalker]

All concepts regardless of what category they are SHOULD be a cognitive process. Religious concepts re notoriously low on facts and I suggest it is an evolved habit to rely on faith as a reason to bypass reason.

It is obvious that any concept is a cognitive process. But my point was about the difference between God as only a concept, a conclusion based upon nothing but speculative thought, as opposed to either just a 'gut feeling', or intuition, or more clearly based upon actual experience. If someone has an actual experience of something that transcends the mundane, than that is not merely conceptual at that point. Ideas about that experience is conceptual, but the belief stems from the experience, not the idea.

This is why faith is unreliable, as it can justify any absurd idea, and even when the collection of religious ideas contradict.

Faith should be open to different ideas. If it's not, that's not faith, that's belief. There is a difference between faith and belief, in the religious sense particularly. They are not synonymous.

I put this together some time ago because it's easier than trying to explain it everytime. If you would be so kind in this discussion to read what I put together here in this post, it would be helpful going forwards, rather than having to keep trying to explain what I'm trying to say each time. There is a difference between belief, faith, experience, and adaptation. This post will explain what I mean more clearly: Belief, Faith, Experience, and Adaptation

It is not a path to truth, it is a path for illusory meaning.

Or it could be a path for great meaning. That really depends upon the depth and maturity and sincerity of the faith. Faith can be too easily used as an excuse for bad reason too. But that doesn't make all of faith that lowest possibly common denominator.

Why should religious concepts get a pass on being reasoned for their credibity and truth?

They shouldn't. But they need to be weighed as to their validity not by the standards of the natural sciences. You don't use biology to assess whether a monk's claim of Satori is valid or not, but you do use other meditators experiences to weigh it against. Zen practices this approach all the time. Would you just say it's all just a "manufactured illusion"? Based upon what standard? Your own expertice with it?

This illustrates why we should not give it too much significance. We meet a girl that seems to be perfect, but over time she turns out to have some rather problematic behavioral issues. Feelings, intuition, first impressions, faith, etc. are all irrelevant when data tells us something else to the contrary.

So, if you got yourself into trouble using your undeveloped internal senses, confused by your lack of experience and hormones in your teen years, making stupid choices, is the rational response to no longer trust it at all, shut it down, and become a caricaturized Mr. Spock who bases all decisions on logic alone? Or would the more rational, reasonable thing be to try to mature and cultivate your intuitive senses? I'll vote for the latter.

That's what faith development is all about. Why do you reduce faith to a immature version of it? I'm reading a book right now called Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian. Here's something I highlighted that sounds identical to what I've been saying for several years now:

For many Christians, while their general academic education matures with their bodies and intelligence, their religious education (if they had any) all too often ends with eighth or twelfth grade. They have to face adult life with an eighth-grade, or teenage-level, religious diploma.​

And this fits in a little later, but from the same book:

And making connections between an adult’s experience and a child’s image of a Divine Being up in heaven running the show may be as impossible as fitting into your high-school graduation suit or dress twenty or even ten years later.​

​

More on this later. But my point here is that what you are focused on is the 8th graders ideas of faith, not an adult's.

Even atheists are not closed to the many possibilities theists propose. It's just that what is proposed is so far removed from what we understand of reality that the task at the feet of believers is immeasurable. They are often more confident than able.

Atheists are just as closed to some possibilities as much as theists are. They just have a few less that they are closed to, that's all For instance, they embrace science, but deny the Divine. The Christians you complain about just do the same but in reverse.

Each is making the same basic error that leads them to denying the possible. Putting their faith in a system of beliefs that says these are the truth and everything that doesn't fit within that view is error.

This isn;t closed minded, this is just following the rules of debate and logic.

You don't think you can be perfectly logical and be perfectly wrong at the same time? I love that quote which says, "Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence".

Yes, logic is a great and useful tool to be sure, but to grip it tightly and insist it must be trusted to the exclusion of all else, is just a clutching, weak faith desperate to put fixed handles upon something beyond grasp in order to feel secure in an uncertain world. It's really just the same thing that these science denying Christians weak in their faith are doing too. Each look to their beliefs as the Answer, with a capital A.

Would you accuse science and the law of being closed minded for the same reason, that God and faith are inadmissable as evidence?

Two different domains of human experience. You wouldn't use science or the law to validate a Satori experience either. You don't use science to tell you you are in love, do you?

This comment singling out atheists rings of bias because you aren't open to extend this to other areas of rational thinking.

I'm not singling out atheists at all. I'm pointing out they are not all that different in their claims of having the real truth than the theists that they accuse of being beneath reason and logic. I'm simply encouraging atheist to not delude themselves into thinking they are as enlightened as they imagine in being able to pick apart immature faith as easily as they do. To me, that's child's play. They same can be said of them. My hope is to encourage a little more self-insight.

Again, I very much embrace rational thinking. I would encourage everyone to do so as well. Faith without rationality can lead to just simple biased blind beliefs. But I would discourage the attitude of taking the power of reason and declaring, "I'm so glad I really DO have the truth now", forgetting that that's the same thinking they had before when they were true believers.

The "heart" reference seems to be a guise and cover for sloppy feeling, thinking, zeal, lust, faith, bias, or any other emotional appeal that is felt.

Not at all. Not the way I am using it is certainly can't be pointed to. Do you hear me using it to justify bad beliefs? If so, please provide quotes of my words to support that.

Atheists have feelings too. Atheists have heart as well. You seem dismissive of atheists as if we are all sociopaths incapable of feeling compassion and empathy. Quite the opposite.

I'm not talking about emotions. I'm talking about deep interior knowledge. I'm talking about cutivated awareness, not just getting by through the day typical emotions and basic funcationality. That's not what I mean by the heart in this context. Of course atheist have feelings, just the same as non-atheists do. How mature and deep those are is a matter of development.

Think of it in terms of saying everyone knows how to use their bodies. Of course they do, but there is a radical difference between just getting by with it, and actually honing it and developing it as an athlete. That's the exact same thing with spiritual development. It's the same thing with emotional maturity. It's the same thing with insights and introspection. Everyone can do a little of that, but not really inhabit life through a developed sense of that.

This definition of faith is rather mundane.

No it's not. I'd encourage reading the article itself I liked to, as well as the thread I linked to above differentiating between belief, faith, experience, and adaptation. If you just wish to flatten everything down to a simplistic view that faith and belief are mere synonyms, then that is not actually discussing reality. Reality is a lot more nuanced than just such oversimplifications for the sake of an ideology.

I'll address some more points later on as time permits.

 

[ppp]

You don't use biology to assess whether a monk's claim of Satori is valid or not, but you do use other meditators experiences to weigh it against.

What acts as the standard for demonstrating that any of the meditators have a foundation in reality?

 

[lukethethird]

It is obvious that any concept is a cognitive process. But my point was about the difference between God as only a concept, a conclusion based upon nothing but speculative thought, as opposed to either just a 'gut feeling', or intuition, or more clearly based upon actual experience. If someone has an actual experience of something that transcends the mundane, than that is not merely conceptual at that point. Ideas about that experience is conceptual, but the belief stems from the experience, not the idea.

Faith should be open to different ideas. If it's not, that's not faith, that's belief. There is a difference between faith and belief, in the religious sense particularly. They are not synonymous.

I put this together some time ago because it's easier than trying to explain it everytime. If you would be so kind in this discussion to read what I put together here in this post, it would be helpful going forwards, rather than having to keep trying to explain what I'm trying to say each time. There is a difference between belief, faith, experience, and adaptation. This post will explain what I mean more clearly: Belief, Faith, Experience, and Adaptation

Or it could be a path for great meaning. That really depends upon the depth and maturity and sincerity of the faith. Faith can be too easily used as an excuse for bad reason too. But that doesn't make all of faith that lowest possibly common denominator.

They shouldn't. But they need to be weighed as to their validity not by the standards of the natural sciences. You don't use biology to assess whether a monk's claim of Satori is valid or not, but you do use other meditators experiences to weigh it against. Zen practices this approach all the time. Would you just say it's all just a "manufactured illusion"? Based upon what standard? Your own expertice with it?

So, if you got yourself into trouble using your undeveloped internal senses, confused by your lack of experience and hormones in your teen years, making stupid choices, is the rational response to no longer trust it at all, shut it down, and become a caricaturized Mr. Spock who bases all decisions on logic alone? Or would the more rational, reasonable thing be to try to mature and cultivate your intuitive senses? I'll vote for the latter.

That's what faith development is all about. Why do you reduce faith to a immature version of it? I'm reading a book right now called Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian. Here's something I highlighted that sounds identical to what I've been saying for several years now:

For many Christians, while their general academic education matures with their bodies and intelligence, their religious education (if they had any) all too often ends with eighth or twelfth grade. They have to face adult life with an eighth-grade, or teenage-level, religious diploma.​

And this fits in a little later, but from the same book:

And making connections between an adult’s experience and a child’s image of a Divine Being up in heaven running the show may be as impossible as fitting into your high-school graduation suit or dress twenty or even ten years later.​

​

More on this later. But my point here is that what you are focused on is the 8th graders ideas of faith, not an adult's.

Atheists are just as closed to some possibilities as much as theists are. They just have a few less that they are closed to, that's all For instance, they embrace science, but deny the Divine. The Christians you complain about just do the same but in reverse.

Each is making the same basic error that leads them to denying the possible. Putting their faith in a system of beliefs that says these are the truth and everything that doesn't fit within that view is error.

You don't think you can be perfectly logical and be perfectly wrong at the same time? I love that quote which says, "Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence".

Yes, logic is a great and useful tool to be sure, but to grip it tightly and insist it must be trusted to the exclusion of all else, is just a clutching, weak faith desperate to put fixed handles upon something beyond grasp in order to feel secure in an uncertain world. It's really just the same thing that these science denying Christians weak in their faith are doing too. Each look to their beliefs as the Answer, with a capital A.

Two different domains of human experience. You wouldn't use science or the law to validate a Satori experience either. You don't use science to tell you you are in love, do you?

I'm not singling out atheists at all. I'm pointing out they are not all that different in their claims of having the real truth than the theists that they accuse of being beneath reason and logic. I'm simply encouraging atheist to not delude themselves into thinking they are as enlightened as they imagine in being able to pick apart immature faith as easily as they do. To me, that's child's play. They same can be said of them. My hope is to encourage a little more self-insight.

Again, I very much embrace rational thinking. I would encourage everyone to do so as well. Faith without rationality can lead to just simple biased blind beliefs. But I would discourage the attitude of taking the power of reason and declaring, "I'm so glad I really DO have the truth now", forgetting that that's the same thinking they had before when they were true believers.

Not at all. Not the way I am using it is certainly can't be pointed to. Do you hear me using it to justify bad beliefs? If so, please provide quotes of my words to support that.

I'm not talking about emotions. I'm talking about deep interior knowledge. I'm talking about cutivated awareness, not just getting by through the day typical emotions and basic funcationality. That's not what I mean by the heart in this context. Of course atheist have feelings, just the same as non-atheists do. How mature and deep those are is a matter of development.

Think of it in terms of saying everyone knows how to use their bodies. Of course they do, but there is a radical difference between just getting by with it, and actually honing it and developing it as an athlete. That's the exact same thing with spiritual development. It's the same thing with emotional maturity. It's the same thing with insights and introspection. Everyone can do a little of that, but not really inhabit life through a developed sense of that.

No it's not. I'd encourage reading the article itself I liked to, as well as the thread I linked to above differentiating between belief, faith, experience, and adaptation. If you just wish to flatten everything down to a simplistic view that faith and belief are mere synonyms, then that is not actually discussing reality. Reality is a lot more nuanced than just such oversimplifications for the sake of an ideology.

I'll address some more points later on as time permits.

Some people don't use religious or paranormal terminology to describe their experiences that "transcend the mundane." Some anomalous experiences go unanswered, some require research, some are lucky to find a natural explanation 40 years after the fact as in one of my cases.

 

[danieldemol]

That is your assumption that it is blindly doing this.

No it isn't, chemicals can be observed with an electron microscope.

There is no eyes to "read" mind to comprehend and have awareness of what should be done etc.

It blindly copies through a process of chemicals going from a high energy state to a low energy state and is only a more complex chemical reaction than fire owing to the longer chains of chemicals involved.

An analogy would be a photocopier that has no knowledge of what should be copied and what shouldn't be, nor the skill to select between the two.

A photocopier can't differentiate between a piece of paper that should be copied and someone sitting on it with their pants down, it just blindly copies away.

Likewise these proteins etc are just blindly copied inclusive of errors, viruses etc with no ability to distinguish or even awareness of them.

There's a code involved and it needs to be transcribed and read to deliver the proper protein.

It doesn't always deliver the "proper protein" as it is just a blind process.

Why go through all this trouble if it were blind reaction? There's digital information involved.

information doesn't require intelligence to process. There is information in a hydrogen atom and an oxygen atom such as number of electrons, number of protons etc. You appear to have acknowledged that fire is a blind chemical reaction in which components go from high energy states to low energy states, why you would think more complex chemical reactions are any different other than assumption has me beat.

There's no reason why intelligence should be restricted to human beings.

Agreed, there is animal intelligence, and there is artificial intelligence - chemicals going from high energy states to low energy states under their properties are none of those.

 

[danieldemol]

Blind chemical reaction produces fire, not functional systems

Fire is a "functional system", its function is to combine atoms that are reactive to oxygen in my view.

 

[blü 2]

No one cares what believers believe. That is their own business. This discussion is about theism, not what some believers believe. You asked me to explain "God" in a theism context. That's what I'm doing. And it has nothing to do with anyone's belief. It has to do with the profoundly unknown, and our human fear of the unknown, and how most humans choose to negotiate with the unknown so as to deal with their fear of it. That's theism. That's what the God ideal is about, and for. And it's a cognitive phenomenon, not a "thing".

How does it differ from what last century was called "existential angst"?

And as a cognitive phenomenon, it's not one I'm familiar with. While I can make a list of many things that could go wrong, both with the world and in my personal life, overall I don't lose much time simply reacting in fear of them. When problems arise, I work out what advice to take, and how I'll proceed, step by step. Meanwhile I know I'll die, and I hope it will be peaceful when it happens. And I know death is the end, because that's how life works.

What am I missing here?

We cognate God the same way we cognate infinity, or perfection, or randomocity, or luck.

Randomness, on our present understanding, is a real phenomenon at quantum levels. They are all conceptual, I agree.

These are all cognitive meta-ideas that we use to develop and evaluate our other ideas of existence. They are not "things". They are cognitive phenomena. So please stop asking for evidence of their "thing-ness". There is none, because these kinds of cognitive meta-ideas aren't things.

I haven't asked you or anyone else for evidence of the thing-ness of those concepts. I've asked for evidence of the thing denoted by the word 'God' who is routinely claimed to be a thing, a real entity.

There is no "world external to the self". That is a delusion peddled by philosophical materialism.

Nonsense. By posting here as 'you', you demonstrate that you think a world exists external to you ─ just as we each do.

Apart from cognition, there is no "world". There is no "self". There is no God. There is no anything. "I think, therefor I am." "I don't think, therefor ... nothing."

You're an aware animal. Your cognition is the product of your brain in particular, your body in general. You've evolved to have five senses for perceiving the world external to you. When you die you'll cease to be aware. Meanwhile, your parents, your air, water, food, shelter, society are all found external to you, and you know about them through your senses. That's how you read my posts, and respond to them, and how I read yours &c. The 'you' in these sentences is your self.

No gods existing in nothingness is of no consequence, whatever. Yet for some reason you keep asserting this as if it's of the utmost importance. When it can't possibly be of any import at all.

As a matter of plain English I don't see how you can be a theist and yet have no 'god' anywhere in your pov.

Atheists and religion have nothing to do with theism.

Why then do you post on a site called 'Religious Forums'?

 

[Windwalker]

Do you really think these theists are making their own mistakes when they make faith-based claims they can't defend? No, this is a systemic problem in all religion, and these mistakes are spread like a virus.

I don't think I implied this is strictly an individual thing. Rather it is a developmental stage thing. The issue isn't religion. This issue is religion in a modern age being practiced in a premodern way. You may recall my citation in my previous post about religion being practiced as an 8th grade or teenage-level religious diploma? That's a developmental stage is all.

What is a systemic problem is if that is all the higher education anyone ever receives! That was fine for the pre-enlightment world in the West, but not afterwards. Everyone has to grow through the different stages in order, and not skip stages. But if the highest level diploma being offered is only at an 8th grade level, if all the teachers max out at that level themselves, then that is a systemic problem. What the ideal situation is would be to have teachers at a college level and beyond teaching the 8th graders, to graduate to the higher grades at some point.

In many places this is the case, but when it comes to the fundamentalist, the 'Bible-believing", "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me" classes, that's best they offer. If you want to grow beyond that, you have to go find another teacher in better schools with a more advanced, more sophisticated curriculum, or slog it out on your own the hard way. That pretty much sums up my story.

I have been debating since 1996 and I have seen many fervent and arrogant believers sign on and boldly assert a lot of religious claims, only to face a lot of very smart critical thinkers, and they are stunned. Many never came back.

Yep, I was a moderator over at a site for ExChristians for around 10 some years beginning around 2002, so I know what you mean. Problem is I found a lot of the atheists there were still pretty much at the true believer stage, only now with their new found truth to replace their previous truth they fully believed in. When I challenged them to see things in a less than black and white myoptic ways, to provoke their reason to the next stages, they were none too pleased with me as a fellow atheist challenging them that way either. Different colored shoes, but pretty much the same shoe size, I'm just saying...

We see a number of fervent creationists on this forum and they are in their own bubble of self-deception and misrepresentation of science.

Yes, I understand their blinders. Nobody likes to have the foundations of their worldviews challenged where they might have to reconsider everything. Most people naturally resist major changes, and would prefer to just sing along with this little song.....

More mainsteam believers have shared less and less over the decades because I think word has gotten around that critical thinkers will ask hard questions that believers just can't answer with faith.

If by mainstream you mean non-fundamentalists, perhaps they share less because the atheists they have encountered always assume they too believe in the God the fundamentalists do, and when they try to explain a more rational version of their faith, the atheists simply just keep repeating the same old arguments tailored to fundamentalists, and not get what they are actually saying? So they basically just tire of it and move on. That's a very good possibility that I could see being true as well.

In the end the theism feels good for those who adopt and invest in certain ideas, but they can't be debated.

Maybe they could be if the atheist understood the actual arguments being made and not assuming they are talking to another fundamentalist? Then again, we may be thinking of different Christians here, and by mainstream you mean mythic-literal bible-believing American evangelicals?

I don't have manufactured religious experiences like what I was referring to. Only pentacostals speak in tongues, only they have that experience. Does any other Christian? No. Why? Because it is a learned and manufactured experience.

So you will trust your experiences that you don't see as "manufactured" then? Same here. If you trust your experiences, isn't that evidence of something to you, even if you don't fully rationally understand it?

Now, as far as "manufactured religious experience" goes, do you see Satori experiences, as manufactured, unreliable, and untrue? Do you see any mystical experiences that happen either through mediation practices, or spontaneously out of the blue to be fake and not real, or not reliable, not informative, and untrustworthy?

Regarding Pentecostals and glossilia, since it's an interesting topic in itself, have there ever been Christians who have never even heard of tongues speaking, spontaneously start speaking in tongues? The answer to that is actually yes. I knew a woman who was practicing meditation for pain management and had that experience and had no idea what it was. So that contradicts your argument that it's only manufactured or taught through group mania, or whatever. Tongues speaking is a common, and ancient practice found in many religions, centuries before Christianity came on the scene.

So I'm curious if you see any higher states of consciousness as 'manufactured' and therefore inauthentic? Isn't that a rather cynical view, one which basically calls all of Buddhism and it's higher states as some sort of manufactured hysteria? I find that sort of view to say the least, less than reasonable.

And that is what believers fall back on when their beliefs and ritual are questioned by skeptics.

Yes, you can have those who fall back on "I just believe it to be true" because it feels good to them. And honestly, a lot of people really haven't examined their beliefs all that closely, and so they'll just call upon their experience, or faith that God is still real to them.

An honest or mature faith, would be able to say, "be that as it may, even if evolution were really true, it doesn't change my faith that God is real. I can feel that is true in my heart". A real faith isn't married to beliefs, like a weak faith has to be.

Catholics will take the eucharist, but no other Christian has that experience. It is learned, mimicked, and experienced.

It faith shared through a common symbol, that's all.

What makes religious experiences reliable and true?

I had a Satori experience. I can doubt everything in life, everything I believe, but that is undeniable reality. It is common to hear said that is seeing Truth, and everything else is an illusion of the mind. It's more real than real, and so forth. That's more reliable than all else, for sure. But not to someone who hasn't experienced that it isn't.

But it really depends on what types of experience you have in mind. If you mean goosebumps on the back of your neck during a sermon, and making conclusions based upon that as a sign from God, I'd be with you in holding that a little more lightly.

This is disingenuous because atheists have experiences like anyone else.

Some atheists have had experiences as I described, and I guarantee you they'd understand what I mean. This transcends atheism and theism and any kinds of beliefs altogether. It transcends religion. It transcends everything, yet embraces and is infused in all of it. This is the nature of nonduality.

They just won't include experiences built on religious assumptions and belief.

Will the excludes experiences that transcends religious assumptions and belief then? I had mine before I had any religious exposure. It was spontaneous, like a lightning bolt out of the blue sky. Nothing sought after or manufactured.

If someone wants to spend Sunday morning at a church I won't get in their way. I race bikes on many Sundays, and it isn't for everyone.

I'm not a church goer myself. The world is my church. Nature is my house of worship.

What is "all this"? And in what way is it integrated?

It would take many posts to begin to be able to explain. Sort of a theory of everything. Happy to, but ask me again later, as I've spent myself addressing these other points for now.

What would happen if you took the power and authority to reject these ideas and allowed yourself to be as you are?

Which is precisely what I have done.

How much room do you allow yourself to be mistaken in your beliefs?

It is fundamental to my approach to see beliefs and provisional at all times. If a belief no longer has any value, I either modify it or discard it like a spent leaf on a branch of the tree to allow for a new leaf to grow in its place in the spring. I rest in Spirit, and beliefs are merely useful but transitory things. I don't rest in my beliefs. Both my recent posts explain why in great detail.

 

[Windwalker]

Some people don't use religious or paranormal terminology to describe their experiences that "transcend the mundane." Some anomalous experiences go unanswered, some require research, some are lucky to find a natural explanation 40 years after the fact as in one of my cases.

I would never classify what I am talking about as paranormal, nor would I consider referring to 'transcending the mundane" to be religious per se. These are simply higher states of consciousness, which have been well researched and mapped out.

Finding a "natural explanation" doesn't make any sense to me. They are natural by definition, because you find them in nature. People have them all the time. That doesn't make them any less profound or life changing.

 

[F1fan]

An agent would be far removed from the making of its learning and adapting program.

If you say so. You aren't saying this based on facts.

It may be that we have a different definition of intelligence.

It's your claim, and your agent isn't known to exist. The definition we use is what is applicable.

I find the signs of forethought and planning to be obvious in the forms and functions of living things. It's all on the fly though. I suggest there is a deeper reality. I couldn't possibly have all the answers but I do see forethought, planning, adaptation, self organizing program at work.

Finish this thought with examples and how natural evolution could not possibly be the reason they exist.

At some point there is brute fact about existence. As intelligent as humans have become I expect the rest of existence to have such properties.

So you are predicting mountain lions will eventually have the intelligence on par with humans? Explain, and use facts.

Benevolent goals and purposes are not a prerequisite of intelligence.

Right, mental illness, indoctrination, greed, fear, etc. can be motivations for anti-social behavior. Why did that get guided in human evolution?

Memory, reason, understanding abilities are evidence of phenomenon that didn't arrive by blind reaction.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Blind reaction?

I'm always amazed that people think that it's all blind reaction when so much stares us in the face.

Yeou're referring to experts in biology. Do you have expertise on par with the best biologists?

A living entity that has memory, reason, and understanding, recall, will is not blindly built. There is ingenuity in those capabilities even occuring.

This is your claim, where is your evidence and the coherent explanation? Do you think experts in biology are all wrong, and you are uniquely correct?

 

[PureX]

So what form does the intelligence you are advocating for exist in? It's not a living organism, and it can't be a machine because that itself would require an intelligence to design and build it, so what are you left with except this intelligence being imagined in your head?

Let's note that you are ignoring most of my questions, and that is because you have no answers. So if you can't explain that your suggestion of an intelligence is then is your view learning and adapting? How close are you to acknowledging it isn't a very sound idea?

And let's note that there are forms of energy that we humans have no clue about, and there are likely more that we are not even aware of existing. Any of which could involve a kind of consciousness that does not require a mechanical or biological (also a mechanism) host. You seem to imagne that our own human ignorance sets the limts of what can and cannot exist. Which is absurdly illogical and grossly egotistical.

 

[PureX]

The usual criticsm against your explanations is them being overly vague.

They are only vague to those who don't actually read to understand, or even try, but instead only read to reject.

 

[PureX]

How does it differ from what last century was called "existential angst"?

Why does it need to "differ"? It's just more precise. Theism has been a significant human cognitive phenomenon since humans were human. In fact, it's a big part of what defines us as human.

And as a cognitive phenomenon, it's not one I'm familiar with.

That's because you seem to be unwilling to recognize or understand anything that isn't "objective". Theism is not about an object. And it is not an objective phenomenological experience. So you've been fighting to dismiss it as non-existence, haven't you? Not trying to recognize it as a very real part of the human experience of reality.

While I can make a list of many things that could go wrong, both with the world and in my personal life, overall I don't lose much time simply reacting in fear of them.

Isn't this desire to dismiss and disregard anything that's not "objectively evident" an expression of a kind of fear? Isn't 'scientism' just another method non-theists use to pretend that they understand and control their circumstances sufficiently so as not to fear, just like the inerrant Bible does for religious fundamentalists?

Why else would anyone be fighting so hard to dismiss any implication that existence contains or expresses forces and energies and consciousnesses that we can't understand or manipulate to our own advantage? Because that sure looks like a form of mystery that the philosophical materialists are fighting tooth and nail not to even acknowledge the possibility of. What are they so afraid of, do you think?

When problems arise, I work out what advice to take, and how I'll proceed, step by step. Meanwhile I know I'll die, and I hope it will be peaceful when it happens. And I know death is the end, because that's how life works.

Well, you THINK you know. But as you should be very much aware, thinking you know (believing) and honestly knowing are not the same things, ... are they. And in fact, the vast majority of what we humans think we know to be so, is just our believing that it's so, because that gives us comfort, and a way to keep moving forward. It's why see this constant WORSHIP of "evidence". Because that's the intellectual currency we use to convince ourselves that we know what we can't honestly know.

What am I missing here?

Randomness, on our present understanding, is a real phenomenon at quantum levels. They are all conceptual, I agree.

Randomness is our conceptual ideation of phenomenon that we can't otherwise find a patter in, Don't make the mistake of "believing in" the truth of randomness just because we conceived of it in response to some observed phenomenon. That's 'scientism'.

I haven't asked you or anyone else for evidence of the thing-ness of those concepts. I've asked for evidence of the thing denoted by the word 'God' who is routinely claimed to be a thing, a real entity.

"God" does not refer to a "thing". It's a word used to refer to a conceptual placeholder in people's minds for the great mystery of being. And that placeholder takes many, many different imagined forms; from the "beardy guy in the sky" to "the force that is with you" and everything in between. IT IS NOT A THING, it's a cognitive phenomenon. So stop asking for 'evidence' of it's thing-ness. The evidence of it is that we are all still discussing it and debating and contemplating it even after 200,000 years of discussing and debating it.

Nonsense. By posting here as 'you', you demonstrate that you think a world exists external to you ─ just as we each do.

What I think constitutes "the world" is not relevant to anyone but me. And it isn;t much relevant to me, even. As I have no way of knowing what "the world" is. And neither do you. So our fighting about it is just a foolish, ego-driven waste of time.

You're an aware animal. Your cognition is the product of your brain in particular, your body in general.

We have no way of knowing this to be so. You clearly believe it, but what any of us believes is irrelevant to whatever the truth is. And we don't honestly know what the truth is. That's the big mystery of being ... what is it all, really? Why is it here? What is our place in it?

As a matter of plain English I don't see how you can be a theist and yet have no 'god' anywhere in your pov.

'God' is just an imaginary conceptual place-holder for the great mystery of being. You could grasp this if you would stop insisting that God be a "thing".

 

[osgart]

This is your claim, where is your evidence and the coherent explanation? Do you think experts in biology are all wrong, and you are uniquely correct?

I think science only explains the behavior of phenomenon and that naturalism, or purpose is philosophical in nature. It's not a scientific question. There's no amount of evidence that would satisfy a naturalist to the contrary. Science must use methodological naturalism to examine the behavior of phenomenon and avoid philosophical questioning. Purpose, and why things are the way they are is not a scientific question.

I think it's a prevalent bias and intuition that so many experts have the conviction that no intelligence is necessary. I don't have to be an expert to recognize ingenuity in nature. I don't need to be an expert to realize the human hand is meant to manipulate objects, or that the eye is made to see. Nor do I need to be an expert to see that memory, reason and understanding all serve the creature well and are not accidental byproducts of a blind process. They are not arbitrary functions. On top of that a DNA sequence code where information is necessary and is read only furthers my conviction. All the errors and insufficiencies of the intelligence don't discourage me. The intelligence struggles mightily with the environmental conditions.

When science travels into philosophy it gets into trouble. Science cannot answer why questions without relying on their own intuitions. There's no deductive inference going on. Naturalism is not demonstratively true. Why aren't experts writing books about the truth of naturalism if so many people have a contrary conviction?