A Challenge to Richard Dawkins and the Atheists

[Greta]

To be fair, science tried for over a century to find even a shred of evidence from theistic claims,

Historically inaccurate, I'm afraid. It's just that there are no things that Atheists will allow to be interpreted AS evidence: it's not that the evidence doesn't exist. It seems that those who know the evidence tend to become Theists. Those who refuse to consider any evidence stay Atheists.

More nonsense. It is not that atheists will not allow anything to be interpreted as evidence, rather there is nothing that presents itself that can only be attributed to a supernatural cause. The point has been made that presents under the Christmas tree is evidence of Santa. If you happen to believe in Santa, the evidence will support that belief, but it will only convert the most credulous of witnesses.

He does actually have a point. Consider the dismissal of Ian Stevenson's work in India. He was a serious researcher and came across some very strange cases. There are other cases where it appears that children remember past lives. The dismissal of NDEs tends to be pretty and offhand too. Up to a point, there's an element of "they boy who cried wolf" in the dynamic. Scientists did spend a lot of time in the past chasing theistic claims without reward, so it's understandable that they would be cynical. Nonetheless, there are still knowledge gaps in which pantheistic or panentheistic deities can be inserted.

[Immanuel Can]

He does actually have a point.

I try to keep those to a minimum.

[seeds]

...an entity that (IMO) has no gender.

You've got the situation backward. "Maleness" is not a human characteristic attributed to God. It's a god-like characteristic attributed to humankind. We have to remember Who is the original, and who is the derivative creature.

We are referring to “physiological” characteristics here, and if you think that you can accurately envision the physiological characteristics of a Being who is somehow capable of “willing into existence” a hundred billion galaxies of suns and planets, then let’s have it.

(And just in case you might be thinking of offering something in the realm of Jesus allegedly stating “...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father...,” it isn’t going to work.)

All “evil” is, or ever was, is low consciousness and the actions resulting from it, which, ironically, is something (low-consciousness) that God “Him”-self (sorry Greta) has imposed on humans for the sake of maintaining the integrity (believability) of the “illusion” of objective reality.

You've got a kind of Pantheist or Gnostic "god" in mind there? That's what it sounds like if we say God "imposes" some sort of "low-consciousness" in order to produce an illusion of believability.

No, I have a “Panentheistic” vision of God in which the entire universe is contained within the closed dimension of God’s personal being (God’s mind), yet the throne of God’s consciousness (the eye of God’s mind, if you will) transcends the material phenomena of the universe.

If you make the effort to really look, you will find that our own minds are constructed similarly to God's mind as described above. For clearly (to me, anyway), a human mind consists of an “agent of consciousness” that transcends, yet presides over, an infinitely malleable substance of creation within a closed dimension of reality - a dimension of reality that is founded upon our own personal being...

...hence the “...created in God’s image...” bit, or the Hermetic “...as above, so below...” bit.

And as far as God “imposing” a low level of consciousness on us in order to produce an illusion of believability (or better yet, an “acceptance” of our present situation)...

...what I am suggesting is that in the same way that flies must function at a fixed level of consciousness so that being a fly “makes sense” to them, or how dogs must function at a fixed level of consciousness so that being a dog makes sense to them, likewise, humans must function at a fixed level of consciousness so that being human makes sense to us.

Otherwise, a higher level of consciousness that might bring on the awareness of the fact that we are standing on an orb of unthinkably advanced mental holography, spinning around topsy-turvy in a twenty-four hour rotisserie cycle within the ether of God’s mind, would be far too bizarre of a distraction from our purpose on this orb.

The “purpose” of course being the receiving of the gift of life, along with our subsequent participation in the process that conveys the gift to others. In other words, the making and raising of babies in a logical appearing setting (again, “logical appearing” due to our “attenuated” level of consciousness).

But then, evil isn't really "bad," is it? It's just a tool the Supreme Being uses to mislead human beings; and if it works, then it's "good" for his purposes.

Again I suggest that what we refer to as being “evil” is simply an unavoidable by-product of the fixed level of consciousness that God imposes on us for the sake of maintaining the integrity and order of the illusion.

In which case, because it is God “himself” (dang it Greta) who is accountable for setting the parameters and conditions of our momentary existence on earth, he is not going to punish any of us for the blind choices we made under the terms of those conditions.
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[seeds]

Sorry, duplicate post.

[Immanuel Can]

...an entity that (IMO) has no gender.

You've got the situation backward. "Maleness" is not a human characteristic attributed to God. It's a god-like characteristic attributed to humankind. We have to remember Who is the original, and who is the derivative creature.

We are referring to “physiological” characteristics here, ...

Well, I can't deny you may be. I'm going to keep ahold of my right to speak for myself, if you're fine with that.

(And just in case you might be thinking of offering something in the realm of Jesus allegedly stating “...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father...,” it isn’t going to work.)

Darn. I hate it when the truth "isn't going to work."

No, I have a “Panentheistic” vision of God in which the entire universe is contained within the closed dimension of God’s personal being (God’s mind), yet the throne of God’s consciousness (the eye of God’s mind, if you will) transcends the material phenomena of the universe.

Okay....

If you make the effort to really look, you will find that our own minds are constructed similarly to God's mind as described above. For clearly (to me, anyway), a human mind consists of an “agent of consciousness” that transcends, yet presides over, an infinitely malleable substance of creation within a closed dimension of reality - a dimension of reality that is founded upon our own personal being...

Umm...okay...

...hence the “...created in God’s image...” bit, or the Hermetic “...as above, so below...” bit.

And as far as God “imposing” a low level of consciousness on us in order to produce an illusion of believability (or better yet, an “acceptance” of our present situation)...

...what I am suggesting is that in the same way that flies must function at a fixed level of consciousness so that being a fly “makes sense” to them, or how dogs must function at a fixed level of consciousness so that being a dog makes sense to them, likewise, humans must function at a fixed level of consciousness so that being human makes sense to us.

Um...buzz...I mean, woof...I mean, okaaaay.....?

Otherwise, a higher level of consciousness that might bring on the awareness of the fact that we are standing on an orb of unthinkably advanced mental holography, spinning around topsy-turvy in a twenty-four hour rotisserie cycle within the ether of God’s mind, would be far too bizarre of a distraction from our purpose on this orb.

I'm sorry...my lava lamp has just shorted out, and my blacklight posters don't glow anymore. Can you give me a sec?

Okay, I'm back now.

Interesting theory. But it's not a trip I'm prepared to sign up for.

Where do we go now?

[seeds]

I'm sorry...my lava lamp has just shorted out, and my blacklight posters don't glow anymore. Can you give me a sec?

Okay, I'm back now.

I’m surprised, IC, I thought this was a friendly sharing of ideas between fellow theists, but your comments are rude and dismissive.

Interesting theory. But it's not a trip I'm prepared to sign up for.

Where do we go now?

Well, I guess the only place to go now is to introduce you to a cartoon I created a long time ago that shows precisely why you are having such a hard time with the atheists in the wallows of this thread.

To me, it represents one of the many reasons for the existence of atheists in the first place.

Here it is - http://www.theultimateseeds.com/Images/ ... 20hell.jpg
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[Immanuel Can]

I’m surprised, IC, I thought this was a friendly sharing of ideas between fellow theists, but your comments are rude and dismissive.

No rudeness intended...but I can't really get there. That's all.

I'd just say that we're going to have to let God say who He is. The rest of us, well, we'd just be making it up.

[Greta]

In summary, ascribing a gender is effectively ascribing a limitation.

BTW Seeds, I enjoyed the irony in your cartoon, especially the angels. Typical executives sucking up to the CEO :)

I've made some religious cartoons too, although much less serious (I'm a Larson fan) :

[Noax]

Then there are only prudential precepts (i.e. do it not because it's "right" but because if you don't you'll have trouble) in Polytheism, Pantheism, or Panentheism.

Been following this thread, which moves too fast for me to keep up. But this stuck out, as well as the one that continuously implies that Atheism must be the source of the morals of an Atheist.

Theists do things for the same reason as atheists: because if you don't you'll have trouble, not because it is right. The bible is full of unrealistic trouble for the unforgivable sin of never having heard of a bible, hyper-inflated to make up for the insane improbability of being true. People are good for fear of that trouble. Santa is the god of children: Be good or get coal, not toys. Nothing about it being the right thing to do.

Religious morals actually were invented as an excuse to bypass obvious morals of human society. Killing is apparently bad, but its OK if I do it in God's name. Theism is an excuse to be immoral.
BTW, thou shalt not kill is a crappy example of a moral. There are lots of exceptions, both in an out of theism. God does not obey his own law. Impressive. Killing is conditionally a bad thing in a society of plentiful resources, and even then I can make a case against it.

[uwot]

Historically inaccurate, I'm afraid. It's just that there are no things that Atheists will allow to be interpreted AS evidence: it's not that the evidence doesn't exist. It seems that those who know the evidence tend to become Theists. Those who refuse to consider any evidence stay Atheists.

More nonsense. It is not that atheists will not allow anything to be interpreted as evidence, rather there is nothing that presents itself that can only be attributed to a supernatural cause. The point has been made that presents under the Christmas tree is evidence of Santa. If you happen to believe in Santa, the evidence will support that belief, but it will only convert the most credulous of witnesses.

He does actually have a point.

Mr Can's point is that he believes there is evidence which supports his personal god, to the exclusion of all others. As he says here:

I'd just say that we're going to have to let God say who He is. The rest of us, well, we'd just be making it up.

Mr Can does not believe that he is making up his god, it is everyone else who has a different god who is making it up. He told you so himself less than two days ago:
Sun Dec 18, 2016 10:03 pm

"He" would have to self-reveal? No assumptions?

Who's assuming?
If He has chosen to reveal His nature, then assumptions are simply not necessary anymore. We have what we need to know. We can choose to believe it or not...but we don't need to assume anymore.

What we have that we need to know is that Mr Can's god is as dishonest, obdurate and hypocritical as Mr Can, because of course, it is created in Mr Can's image, by Mr Can. If Mr Can is created in God's image we're all fucked. I have made the point many times that atheists do not necessarily deny that god exists; like I said, pantheism and panentheism are workable hypotheses, atheists just don't happen to believe them.
As for reincarnation and NDEs, for all that there may be some very strange cases, I think scientists who dismiss them would argue that there are none which are so compelling that they exclude an alternative explanation, but as Stevenson's wikipedia entry states "Child psychiatrist Jim Tucker continues Stevenson's work". It remains to be seen what he turns up.
There is sound physics that admits the possibility of something that might resemble a 'soul'. Given that consciousness is know to be associated with electromagnetic fields generated in brains, it is conceivable that consciousness is that field. That being so, then it doesn't simply vanish when a brain dies. Like the light from a bulb that pops, or a star that goes out, the field is part of the universe for as long as there is a universe, but the odds of such a field being collapsed and inserted into another being are vanishingly small.

[seeds]

In summary, ascribing a gender is effectively ascribing a limitation.

BTW Seeds, I enjoyed the irony in your cartoon, especially the angels. Typical executives sucking up to the CEO

I've made some religious cartoons too, although much less serious (I'm a Larson fan) :

Thank you Greta.

I visited your website (http://www.sangrea.net) a while back. Great stuff there.

You are a dynamo of creativity.

(I too am a big fan of Larson. He and Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) are the best in my book.)
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[Immanuel Can]

Theists do things for the same reason as atheists: because if you don't you'll have trouble, not because it is right.

I don't know if there are some who do that. I wouldn't be surprised. But I know there are many who do not. Your generalization is hasty -- and erroneous.

Atheists have neither logic nor motive for goodness, nor even the category "good" derivable from their basic assumptions about ontology. Theists do. That makes a very big difference indeed.

Religious morals actually were invented as an excuse to bypass obvious morals of human society. Killing is apparently bad, but its OK if I do it in God's name. Theism is an excuse to be immoral.

Historically incorrect. The morality of society was derived from early religious codes, not the other way around. That's not even controversial. But you are right to say that SOME religious codes have been used to justify SOME evil actions. That's certainly verifiably true in the case of Islam...just as Atheist ideology has been so frequently used to justify murder, as in Russia, China, Cambodia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba...and the former Soviet Bloc.

What it really reveals is this: not all religions are moral. Neither are secular ideologies like Atheism. Human beings have a deeply flawed nature, and frequently use ideologies as excuses for their darker desires. But on the other side, some beliefs increase the amount of goodness in the world and inhibit evil. So the trick is not to condemn everything, but to discern which is which: keep the good, and avoid the bad.

But look at Atheism's history, and you'll have 148 million reasons why it's the first ideology that should hit the scrap heap of history.

BTW, thou shalt not kill is a crappy example of a moral.

Actually, it reads, "Thou shalt not murder." And I think it's excellent. If you don't, then you're at least inadvertently advocating gratuitous homicide, so I suspect you actually would too, once you grasp it.

There are lots of exceptions, both in an out of theism.

Not true, in the case of murder. Arguably true in the case of killing, though. Self-defense or defence of family might be one such. However, this is why legalism is not a good way to view ethics: a precept like the 10 Commandments may give you a starting point, but it doesn't fill in the details. There's more to Theistic ethics than that.

I've talked about the three levels of Theistic ethics in an earlier message, so I won't repeat that here. But there's much more to the Theistic ethics story than your comments here would suggest you know. It's not legalistic, and it's not just commandments. So it addresses situations much better than you may imagine.

You've got an "outsider's" perspective. The danger of that is that you can oversimplify and then dismiss without understanding. Atheism's easier, though: as its proponents will tell you, it's a minimal, irrational and obdurate insistence that there is no God. And they'll also freely admit it has no ethics.

Strangely, they say that as if it were some kind of virtue. But then, much of what they say is strangely irrational.

[Greta]

As for reincarnation and NDEs, for all that there may be some very strange cases, I think scientists who dismiss them would argue that there are none which are so compelling that they exclude an alternative explanation, but as Stevenson's wikipedia entry states "Child psychiatrist Jim Tucker continues Stevenson's work". It remains to be seen what he turns up.
There is sound physics that admits the possibility of something that might resemble a 'soul'. Given that consciousness is know to be associated with electromagnetic fields generated in brains, it is conceivable that consciousness is that field. That being so, then it doesn't simply vanish when a brain dies. Like the light from a bulb that pops, or a star that goes out, the field is part of the universe for as long as there is a universe, but the odds of such a field being collapsed and inserted into another being are vanishingly small.

Could be, certainly. I should say that I don't blame scientists for not following up much on metaphysics these days. Esoteric or "blue skies" research generally has been put aside for targetted work relevant to industry.

I've been thinking that the best chance of "soul preservation" would be at the Planck scale (soul of the gaps). I once vaguely heard a hypothesis where it was posited that the Planck scale may be static and ordered, as opposed to frenetic quantum systems. That had me wondering if the smallest scale simply accumulates information, layer by layer, Planck time by Planck time. Is there anywhere for information at the Planck scale to get lost to? Maybe "lost" upwards to larger scales again before bouncing back down...? Wildly speculative, I know.

If anything like reincarnation happens, we don't yet understand the mechanisms, as you say. There's nothing in the current models that lends support to any of the usually-doubted paranormal events in a way that can be rigorously tested. Oh well, never say never

[Greta]

You are a dynamo of creativity.

(I too am a big fan of Larson. He and Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) are the best in my book.)
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Very kind, Seeds. I'm not very creative any more. Now it all goes on philosophy forums. Why? I don't know. Some psychopathology or another

What I love about Larson is how funny he can be at no one's expense. He is an inspiration. Mum was a satirist so I have a really "wicked" aspect to me, but I try to keep suppressed. Sometimes I succeed ...

[Noax]

Theists do things for the same reason as atheists: because if you don't you'll have trouble, not because it is right.

I don't know if there are some who do that. I wouldn't be surprised. But I know there are many who do not. Your generalization is hasty -- and erroneous.

You made that generalization about atheists.

Atheists have neither logic nor motive for goodness, nor even the category "good" derivable from their basic assumptions about ontology. Theists do. That makes a very big difference indeed.

What motivation for goodness does the theist have that I don't? We're both members of the same society say.

Historically incorrect. The morality of society was derived from early religious codes, not the other way around. That's not even controversial. But you are right to say that SOME religious codes have been used to justify SOME evil actions. That's certainly verifiably true in the case of Islam...just as Atheist ideology has been so frequently used to justify murder, as in Russia, China, Cambodia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba...and the former Soviet Bloc.

No Christians in that list? How about earlier than that, say the Jews coming right off that mountain with their new commandments, and immediately coveting a land that wasn't theirs, killing the occupants so they could steal it. But that was OK because God made them do it.

Actually, it reads, "Thou shalt not murder."

My version says kill, but KJV is hardly original text. It also mistakenly has Isaiah predicting a virgin birth. I don't think the original text forbade only gratuitous homicide.

A better example of a moral is an act that is optional, such as picking up litter when nobody is around to notice. No punishment by God or society for not doing that, and thus an act done more for the correct reasons.