All the problems with Christianity

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'Subjective experience' is the biggest delusion. Sorry.

Here here!

This thread has been so thoroughly derailed by mystical lunacy that I find it no longer worth the effort required to post responses to those who are genuinely trying to discuss the subject matter.

I hope that any contribution I have made has at least helped stalwart theists to understand just some of the problems we non-theists have with religion. I hope further that your eyes are not blind to the possibility that you have been duped by what is essentially a political tool to control the masses.

I do not, however, require that any of you 'convert to atheism' in order to gain some form of ephemeral, empty victory. Whatever your beliefs are, and however misguided they may be, thank you all for your thoughts made manifest.

Thank you too, adifferentname. God bless.

As you said on another thread "Quining Qualia" ( OP by Wittgenstein ) "Subjective experience" and "subjective truth" have been "useful ( and enjoyable ) fictions" for me the last few years, like "god"/belief in god ... whereas "free will" no longer seems to me like a useful fiction ( though when I "believed in it" I certainly did not think that it was a fiction :lol whereas I am aware that my intermittent belief in god/the construct "god" is a useful fiction for me, fulfilling various functions brilliantly ).

When and why do you think that humans first began using all these "useful fictions" of emotions, beliefs, etc? In what way do you think that they were useful/evolutionarily advantageous or otherwise "selected for" by the environments in which humans were developing? Do you think that pointing out the "fictions", the fact that all these labels/social constructs are merely names on a "map" for things like electrical signals is useful, that it has some function or role in a particular fiction/story/narrative to which you are particularly attached?

Edit. PS. Why do we do this? Why have we constructed this immense network of interlocking concepts/labels/value judgements and symbols for everything from the adrenal gland reactions through dopamine pathways to enteric nervous system function faced with gluten, and the smallest electrical impulses around our body etc?

In the earliest books, Bible or Illiad etc, many "emotions" are actually described as guts this, and blood that and limbs such and such and heart here and weight and lightness and etc ... many "emotions" were actually nothing other than physical reactions ( not even always the sensations so much as the body's actual behaviour ) ...

Why did we build increasingly complex concepts on top of those? We didn't have speech symbols for "Nerve Ending 221B" or "Motor synapse 007" or whatever? ... so we had to make it all up?

PPS. So when I say "subjective experience/truth" I "mean" the state/condition and ongoing processes of my body, in its limited precious unique here and now, which no other body can ever duplicate, because no other body is ever exactly the same nor can occupy the same place as mine at the same time. :lol
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At minimum, there are so many problems with it, that it's hard to take a wholly subjective experience seriously.

I don't mean to disclaim the experiences of people who are genuinely being marginalized. I just simply mean that all kinds of delusions are very psychologically common, whether it's hallucinations, inferences mistaken as being the plain reality, poor memory, just some bit of mental bizarreness/breakdown. The brain is fallible, and it can be fooled and it's workings disrupted. That's why reality testing is important.

And don't you think that a fair God would give the common courtesy of irrefutable, solid evidence, for a solid basis of belief, since the (infinitely disproportionate) punishment for disbelief is allegedly eternal torture in fiery hell?

Doesn't that seem more like dark ages "justice" than divine?

Isn't "subjective experience" the type of "basis" that we'd expect would be claimed if there is no God, no real evidence, and religion is a con?

Nope I said fully meaningful not only meaningful; many people report they have spiritual awakenings visiting my blog. Your Universe is only yours; just because you don't feel it doesn't means it's not burning fire in some other people's hearts.

That's how the spirit world works; it's different for everyone.

You are welcome to visit my blog to analyze my methodology and theories. It requires going through each link to observe the full effect. It is a present tense research experience. The only way to duplicate the research is to travel the path laid out.

HA ha. Do you really think I'm serious? I told you I was a cosmic comedian. Why didn't you believe it?

If you want to you can believe it; I'm not going to stop you. :)

I don't play by the rules of your logic. Sorry 'bout that.

That is in reference to your characters I played with on my thread.

Smiles.

Hmm what's reality. Seriously reality is an emotion based experience. It is ruled by preconceived notions. No one who is capable in making decisions escapes the filter of emotion before logic comes into play. Research backs that up. I can put my scientist hat on and provide the links if you like.

In other words all that exists is subjective. The illusion is objectivity.

True objectivity is loss of emotion; loss of decision making. That my friend is free will. Trust me you don't want to go there. And I forgot to mention if you haven't studied human physiology sleeping 35 hours in 40 days, is just a little more than uncomfortable. It is described in science as the worse torture possible for a human being. No one has survived longer than 264 hours with absolutely no sleep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gard ... _holder%29

One lives God not defines God

Language run forward and backward is reflection of Universe Microcosm Meaning

Reason one hears Gawd awful voices in Gawd Filled music playing reverse

Cool many periods needed not

One write messages both ways understand

I simply don't bother to guess what would 'god' do. It is pointless. The apologist have no real definition of goodness. All the 'god is good' utterance is nonsense.


We have systematic and rigorous procedure exploring the universe known as science. We have scientific instruments orders of magnitude more sensitive than any known creatures. We have abstract mathematics, that is infinitely more precise and unrestricted compared with common language.Thanks to these we can go beyond our primitive 'subjective experience'.

By 'useful' it that thread I meant useful for desceibing the universe. Just don't confuse 'useful for enjoyment' and 'useful for describing the universe'.


These fictions do help to predict the behavior of other people. That is an advantage in a society.


Isn't it our objective to understand how the mind (as opposed to the brain) works without appealing to magic?


The opposite is true. A scientific description is even more complicated.

We are hardwired so that we can react as one, quickly, to the external environment. We cannot help but thinking we are a homunculus detached from the brain, receiving a stream of 'qualia' (I suppose it takes a second homunculus to observe the qualia of the first homunculus, and so on).

I'll use my simplistic example of taking a walk and deciding whether to turn right or left again. I could flip a coin and go whichever way the coin decides, which could be considered random. But suppose I look at each path and decide to go right because of some reason I decide on. This would seem different than flipping a coin, because I can state a reason that I had for making my decision. Now in this case you could come back and say "well then that's pre-determined". But it gets harder to argue that in cases where I choose a course of action that goes against my instincts, but I'm choosing it for a specific reason that's more than a coin flip.

This is a little of a side topic, but let me ask you what you personally think about this... if there isn't any such thing as free will (it's all just either random or pre-destined), then is there any point in assigning blame to people? Or would we ultimately have to say that the serial killer was simply pre-destined to kill people based on some sort of past setup (whether experiential or biological)? Note that I recognize we could still say that punishing the serial killer could potentially provide a reason (still pre-destined) that could make someone else choose to not kill when otherwise they would. But even if we assume that assigning punishment is still appropriate within this framework due to this, does it become nonsensical to assign blame (since in my example before regarding the tiger, blame seems to often imply free choice)?

You're bringing up a practical criticism to a hypothetical argument. It doesn't really matter what people DO choose, the question here is what CAN they choose.
Free will says people can choose basically anything, even if they never do choose certain things in practice. I could choose to bore a hole into my head with a hand drill, but I most certainly won't. The fact that I won't doesn't automatically mean that I can't, not theoretically at least.



You're thinking of it in a human perspective, which is bound by a linear course of events that is locked into linear time. If we assume God isn't bound by time, then we can expand the view of omniscience to include both what is and what is not (from our time-based perspective). If he has full knowledge of both everything that does happen and everything that does not happen, then whether I choose to turn right or left has no bearing on God's knowledge base, and therefore isn't a threat to his omniscience, even if I have full free will in making it.
In other words, God knows that I will turn right, and knows everything involved as a cause and effect of me turning right. God also knows that I will turn left, and knows everything involved as a cause and effect of me turning left. These sentences may seem contradictory, but only from a time-locked perspective where only one course of events can exist.

If you're asking me, it would obviously be 100% no, since each of those things pretty much destroyed an enormous amount of free will in their process.

Words One's Words describes One in Words

Excellent comment!

I would encourage anyone to go back and read all your comments in this thread.

You has IT going on
Just Mind opinion that is all

Last edited by aghogday on 22 Jul 2013, 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.