Lets liven things up a bit on MIMF...

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
An addition to the discussion:

The most important ground of belief is probably not philosophical argument but religious experience. Many people of very many different cultures have thought themselves in experiential touch with a being worthy of worship. They believe that there is such a person, but not because of the explanatory prowess of such belief. Or maybe there is something like Calvin’s sensus divinitatis. Indeed, if theism is true, then very likely there is something like the sensus divinitatis. So claiming that the only sensible ground for belief in God is the explanatory quality of such belief is substantially equivalent to assuming atheism.



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JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
As far as I am concerned the existence of a creator and religion are not the same thing, they obviously are to various religions.
The big question that I find interesting is
1. whether the UV just happened
2. was it indeed made to happen
A third point is what is the purpose of life because it seem to pop up all over the place and is hell bent on evolving to survive.
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Br. Colin,

I rejoice and am very happy that you are asking very hard questions - It is the hallmark of one who truly seeks out the truth - God Bless you dear sir.............

Something more to consider:

Thomas Nagel, a terrific philosopher and an unusually perceptive atheist, says he simply doesn’t want there to be any such person as God. And it isn’t hard to see why. For one thing, there would be what some would think was an intolerable invasion of privacy: God would know my every thought long before I thought it. For another, my actions and even my thoughts would be a constant subject of judgment and evaluation.

Basically, these come down to the serious limitation of human autonomy posed by theism. This desire for autonomy can reach very substantial proportions, as with the German philosopher Heidegger, who, according to Richard Rorty, felt guilty for living in a universe he had not himself created. Now there’s a tender conscience! But even a less monumental desire for autonomy can perhaps also motivate atheism.
 
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JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
Br. Colin,



Something more to consider:

Thomas Nagel, a terrific philosopher and an unusually perceptive atheist, says he simply doesn’t want there to be any such person as God. And it isn’t hard to see why. For one thing, there would be what some would think was an intolerable invasion of privacy: God would know my every thought long before I thought it.
It also raises the old question of "Free will" which that would negate eh. As an engineer I can see the case against the notion of free will but not for the reason of the God that we seem to be discussing.
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Br. Colin,

I will attend to your questions when I have finished adding all the thoughts I have on my mind in regards to the thread I originated.

Best regards,

CD
 

John Watt

Member
Hmmm! What if heaven is the electricity of our brains being uploaded, or phased, into another dimension?
The dimension that is not of the flesh.
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Friends,

Yet another item to consider:

If there are only material entities, then atheism certainly follows. But there is a really serious problem for materialism: It can’t be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe that humans are the product of evolution.
 

John Watt

Member
Eve, eve vulva, evolve, evolution, I can dig it, especially when I'm dug down six feet,
pushing up wheat for the hungry.

But I'm not saying evolution like some big, one-off event.
Everything living is evolving, horticulture and animal breeding being versions of that.
My musical abilities are evolving, what I can get into on guitar when I'm getting into singing.

This evolution of residential technology in my life allows me to return to Magle.dk,
and it's very good to see you again, Corno Dolce.
 
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JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
Friends,

Yet another item to consider:

If there are only material entities, then atheism certainly follows. But there is a really serious problem for materialism: It can’t be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe that humans are the product of evolution.

If there are non material entities what are they made of? and yes I do follow the best explanation yet that we all evolved
 

Albert

New member
CD I am a theist. My head cannot get around the question "Where did the universe come from." Science is splitting hairs on how many billions of years old the universe is, but what was before? Where did the universe come from? At the same time, I do have problems with "religion" because it seems to me that many religions (including the one I am a member of) seek to control.
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Colin,

What, praytell, is the best explanation yet that we have evolved...?

And now comes the next inclusion of information:

Now, if materialism is true, human beings, naturally enough, are material objects. Now what, from this point of view, would a belief be? My belief than Marcel Proust is more subtle than Louis L’Amour, for example? Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures. But in addition to such neurophysiological properties, this structure, if it is a belief, would also have to have a content: It would have, say, to be the belief that Proust is more subtle than L’Amour.
 
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John Watt

Member
Yes, and what about a visual explanation we can all find out for ourselves?
You know we can't tell we are going over 80,000 miles an hour, orbiting,
with all the spinning the world, the whirled, is also moving through.
We place ourselves in our own universe of understanding what we can see.
But what are we seeing?
You know what it looks like when you keep enlarging a digital photo,
getting to look like pixels of of blurry colour, enlarging as much as you can.
Your eyes are perceiving that beyond that, not just a static light capture.
But that's not what the world looks like to you, or having a sense of living.

Do you see the universe as a living thing?

There are Mohawk natives in Fort Erie they call the beautiful Mohawks,
people who didn't mingle with whites to get into the alcohol and diseases.
I have only met one, visiting in my new apartment, providing a shelter, for a while.
A beautiful Mohawk can show a tear coming from his eye that looks like a shining jewel.
Without a racist thought, it's difficult to surmise life when your own life has gotten away from you,
been taken away from you, or transported to another continent, probably before you were born.
Even though we now know the Host of hosts, our new intermediary between heaven and earth,
our original spirit hosts are still in place.

I think Louis L'Amour was more dramatic than Karl Marx.
 
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John Watt

Member
If you think you know yourself, try this.
Sit in a chair and move your right foot slowly in a circle.
Use your left hand to draw a big number six in the air.
What happened?
I think it's time you forgave your mother.
 
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Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Welcome back John Watt...

Good to see you back. Imho the Universe is very much Alive and living. It is a dynamic and evolving system. Our brother Colin commiserated about that life seems to pop up everywhere, hell-bent on surviving. Of course, all species wish to survive. Some of those species are harmful to us such as Ebola and other vectors that cause Dengue Fever, Malaria, Typhoid Fever and...need I go on? We as humans are equipped with capabilities that animals don't have. We are fearfully and wonderfully made - the Apex of Creation. What we do with ourselves and how we use our abilities to foster life or destroy life determines very much how benign or how evil we can become.
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
Colin,

What, praytell, is the best explanation yet that we have evolved...?


There is no single thingCD but add together all the information that has been gathered by our scientist’s over the years that show the theory of evolution, and day by day we add to it,
Because evolution takes so long we have not been aware of it and the alterative was to explain it in away that best suited the times (religion, Gods). But today we are beginning to see how evolution works at a basic level and thanks to DNA we can trace our heritage back into the distance past.
A common trap people fall into including me was to think that because we have about 98% the dna of aMonkey that we must have evolved from them when in fact all it means is we share the same ancestor as do all living things.
OK we still have a lot to learn but when compared to the theory that some supreme being created us in our present form well, I vote evolution.
 
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Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Br. Colin,

But what started the evolution itself? Could you please share with MIMF how the evolution got started...Surely there must be a verifiable starting point to evolution, eh? We run into problems when humankind is the epicenter of all conceptual and empirical research and evidence, aka Anthroposophy. Then there are those who think it all to be a roll-of-the-dice...That it all just happened by chance...Methinks another Copernican Revolution needs to take place. Again, I am in search of Truth...Truth is absolute, not opinion! How the known Universe and the unknown Universe and life on Earth got started are open questions. Lets not close the questions by positing that Evolution is the answer to it all.

Now, for another inclusion:

I’m interested in the fact that beliefs cause (or at least partly cause) actions. For example, my belief that there is a beer in the fridge (together with my desire to have a beer) can cause me to heave myself out of my comfortable armchair and lumber over to the fridge. Here’s the important point: It’s by virtue of its material, neurophysiological properties that a belief causes the action. It’s in virtue of those electrical signals sent via efferent nerves to the relevant muscles, that the belief about the beer in the fridge causes me to go to the fridge. It is not by virtue of the content (there is a beer in the fridge) the belief has.
 
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JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
Comrade CD, Are you talking of evolution on our planet ‘Earth” if so I would hazard a guess that it would be around the time that animate matter made an appearance that is only a wild guess and a lot more could be said on that subject. There is a point of view that life on Earth could have been seeded so came from some other place in the UV, you suggest that we do not accept that evolution is the answer to it all and I agree, it goes way beyond that but evolution cannot be denied, we come back to purpose or accident.
 

Dorsetmike

Member
Comrade CD, Are you talking of evolution on our planet ‘Earth” if so I would hazard a guess that it would be around the time that animate matter made an appearance that is only a wild guess and a lot more could be said on that subject. There is a point of view that life on Earth could have been seeded so came from some other place in the UV, you suggest that we do not accept that evolution is the answer to it all and I agree, it goes way beyond that but evolution cannot be denied, we come back to purpose or accident.

The way I see it is that it all happened so long ago that there's nothing we can do about it now, so why waste time and effort worrying about it? Each opinion has its followers many of whom appear to take the stance of "don't confuse me with facts, my mind's made up" so discussion rarely achieves anything except sometimes alienating friends.
 
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