Can the Religious Be Trusted?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I also have my subjective "personal philosophy" and maybe even spent more time on that one. I just don't see much point in discussing it (here).

The thing is that, today, and out there is the real world, in culture, in society, is that battles are being waged not on the level of pure, clinical ideas, but through subjective sentiments, feelings and also values. This is why I approach examination of BigMike as a manifestation of an idea-set that is becoming popular and also powerful. It revolves around entire sets of assertions, said to be scientific, but dovetailing into cultural and social engineering, and —this is important — to all that revolves around the question of atheism.

I get the most benefit here by standing back from the assertions that *philosophers* make in these conversations, and examining their presentations not only at an idea-level but from an examination of what I can gather of their psychological position. Psychology is so much more to me than the clinical psychology we are familiar with and has everything to do with the psyche of man — literally the soul. The core of man. Man-ness. Humanness. Human being.

It is odd, in my view, that academic philosophy excludes what is most central to man and necessarily to our selves.

[Atla]

I also have my subjective "personal philosophy" and maybe even spent more time on that one. I just don't see much point in discussing it (here).

The thing is that, today, and out there is the real world, in culture, in society, is that battles are being waged not on the level of pure, clinical ideas, but through subjective sentiments, feelings and also values. This is why I approach examination of BigMike as a manifestation of an idea-set that is becoming popular and also powerful. It revolves around entire sets of assertions, said to be scientific, but dovetailing into cultural and social engineering, and —this is important — to all that revolves around the question of atheism.

I get the most benefit here by standing back from the assertions that *philosophers* make in these conversations, and examining their presentations not only at an idea-level but from an examination of what I can gather of their psychological position. Psychology is so much more to me than the clinical psychology we are familiar with and has everything to do with the psyche of man — literally the soul. The core of man. Man-ness. Humanness. Human being.

It is odd, in my view, that academic philosophy excludes what is most central to man and necessarily to our selves.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that "Analytic" Western philosophy tends to exclude it while "Continental" Western philosophy doesn't?

[BigMike]

Yes, you’ve waxed poetic about the “soul” or “mind” instructing the brain, as if that somehow excuses you from engaging with the fact-based, deterministic framework I’ve presented. But it doesn’t. If your soul is doing the thinking, before engaging the brain, maybe it’s time to let your brain step in—because whatever is driving your responses, it’s not clarity, logic, or rigor.

So here’s the deal: if you have something meaningful to say, then say it. Address the arguments, defend your position, or offer a coherent alternative. Otherwise, cut the theatrics. Your shtick isn’t as clever as you seem to think, and it’s wearing thinner by the post.

A few thoughts here …

One is that you hit a nail on the head when you say that the notion of *the soul* has been rendered *poetic*.

One of the effects of the new rationalism and the rise of a material science (back in the 17th century) was to confront and challenge all representations of views of *reality* that could not be verified by evidence and through experiment. One of the effects of this was that rational men, enthused by a new methodology of analysis, had to confront what had been described in theology as the non-material soul. What was the connecting point between a non-material entity and the material being and the material world?

Connected to the enthusiasm for this new method was the necessary rejection of a great deal of *poetic allusion*. The truths of poetry, or those expressed in artful use of language, symbolism and allusion, fell into disrepute. Direct statements, in clear prose and in careful precise language, came to be seen as more favorable for the revelation of what was a New Knowledge, a new means of arriving at what is *true*.

The reason I say this is because in the course of this conversation my object is not so much to refute the basis of your physiological assertions, but moreover to *locate* you within the course of intellectual evolution of thought. This is the reason I refer to you as *reductionist*. And also why I cannot help but notice all that you must exclude from the table of the considerable. I know, I know, you will find what I am referring to here in your typical terms of sheer contempt. But that is not my problem.

It is not that I dismiss your *fact-based deterministic framework*. Actually I work within it but with a caveat. I have stated that I think you operate within reductive concepts and that your object is to take “agency” and “volition” away from man. Here I cannot and I do not believe I ever will go along with you. I do not think that you understand the sound reasons for my opposition (and that of many on this forum who oppose aspects of your ideology).

I did not say, actually, that the soul instructs the brain. Because I understand and agree that the instrument of the brain is fundamental and necessary to cognition. And the fact of the matter is that I have no way to demonstrate nor to prove that such a thing as a *soul* exists. So I grant you (and those with your objectives) the right not to consider as real, in any sense, such a factor as the soul’s existence. Understood from the materialist’s and the scientist’s platform, the mention of the soul cannot be considered. It cannot be relevant to the material sciences and, I suppose, to those who study the brain.

If your soul is doing the thinking, before engaging the brain, maybe it’s time to let your brain step in—because whatever is driving your responses, it’s not clarity, logic, or rigor.

The problem as I see it with this formulation, and so much of your formula that you work with, centers around all that it necessarily denies in *human experience* in the realm of life. That is why I refer to epistemological systems and the conflict between them. And also to *truth claims* and the intellectual basis for them.

What I do not think that you understand is not that I do not grasp that a science-based worldview has collapsed and undermined an entire order of seeing and explaining *the world* and manifest reality, I certainly do, but that I notice that this Scientism has itself become infused with a religious conviction in regards to the order of view and understanding that it posits.

I see you as a shining example of a man who has been *captured* by these certainties. I can only really tell you that, as I understand things, and also in my reading of people with different orders of idea and interpretation, that I do not believe everything to be as settled as you desire, with such adamancy, to portray it.

…if you have something meaningful to say, then say it.

But in your case, BigMike, you must understand that what is *meaningful* to you must conform to your schema, to your scaffolding. Any allusion, on any level, that deviates from your schema is by definition meaningless!

The real core of the issues we are discussing has very much to do with— and here I tell you my subjective position as an individual — what, and where, I will place my *trust*. Honestly this is what it revolves around. Let me say this: I do not trust you. Don’t take it as a personal thing, it is not.The platform you describe, your tendency to intellectual tyranny, your overblown authoritarian attitude, your dismissiveness of other modes of knowing, and also your (as I understand it) twisted notions in regard to revamping education and the engineering of a new man who sees the manifest word as you do and conforms to your schema, does not in any sense inspire trust! Could I fairly say that you are *half-mad*? I might, but you’d have to grasp that I consider so much going on in the intellectual world as manifestations of mental dis-ease.

So I have a very different way of looking at *you*, what you say, and where you are coming from. I am fairly certain that not only do you not understand my concerns but that given your adamant predicates that you cannot!

Go in peace, my child.

Alexis,

Save your "few thoughts" and your condescending sign-off. I’m not here for your self-indulgent musings or your mock-parental dismissal. I’ve asked you specific questions, repeatedly, and instead of answers, you shovel the same evasive nonsense and intellectual fluff. You want to call me reductive? Fine, let’s get reductive: Do you or do you not acknowledge that memories are stored in the brain as physical alterations? That the strengthening and weakening of synaptic connections, guided by experience and input, form the basis of learning and memory?

This isn’t an abstract or subjective matter. It’s established neuroscience, grounded in physical laws as fundamental as gravity or thermodynamics. If you accept this—and let’s see if you’ll commit to a straight answer for once—then how do you not see that this fact directly addresses your concern about "agency" and "volition"? Memories and learning are the deterministic mechanisms by which humans adapt, choose, and act. These processes don’t “remove agency”; they define it in a way that’s coherent with reality.

Your refusal to address this core point and your continued reliance on empty metaphysical babble to sidestep the discussion is a form of intellectual dishonesty. You claim you don’t trust me? Good—because I don’t trust anyone who hides behind a smokescreen of vague "truth claims" while refusing to answer basic questions. You dismiss my arguments as “adamant” and “authoritarian,” but here’s the truth: your evasiveness reeks of cowardice. It’s easier to throw around accusations and speculate about my supposed "mental dis-ease" than to provide a coherent response.

You’ve implied I’m "half-mad" for challenging your worldview. Here’s a thought: maybe the madness lies in refusing to confront evidence, in clinging to nebulous ideas while denying the clarity of observable facts. If you’ve got answers, then give them. If you don’t, stop wasting my time and yours with this charade. I will continue to push for clarity as long as you keep responding with nonsense. Either engage seriously or step aside.

[BigMike]

I also have my subjective "personal philosophy" and maybe even spent more time on that one. I just don't see much point in discussing it (here).

The thing is that, today, and out there is the real world, in culture, in society, is that battles are being waged not on the level of pure, clinical ideas, but through subjective sentiments, feelings and also values. This is why I approach examination of BigMike as a manifestation of an idea-set that is becoming popular and also powerful. It revolves around entire sets of assertions, said to be scientific, but dovetailing into cultural and social engineering, and —this is important — to all that revolves around the question of atheism.

I get the most benefit here by standing back from the assertions that *philosophers* make in these conversations, and examining their presentations not only at an idea-level but from an examination of what I can gather of their psychological position. Psychology is so much more to me than the clinical psychology we are familiar with and has everything to do with the psyche of man — literally the soul. The core of man. Man-ness. Humanness. Human being.

It is odd, in my view, that academic philosophy excludes what is most central to man and necessarily to our selves.

Alexis,

You’re back at it again, deflecting with broad generalities and pseudo-profound musings about “the psyche of man,” all while avoiding the key issues raised. You say you benefit most by “standing back” and examining others’ positions at a psychological level. How convenient. By playing the amateur psychologist, you get to avoid engaging with the actual arguments and instead frame dissenting views as mere psychological artifacts, as if that dismisses their validity.

Let’s not kid ourselves here: this isn’t about "subjective sentiments" or "battles in culture." It’s about your unwillingness to address a simple, concrete question. You speak of "the soul" and "humanness" as if invoking them adds depth to the conversation, but it doesn’t. It’s just another smokescreen to avoid answering what you cannot or will not defend.

You’re obsessed with painting my worldview as “cultural engineering” or “scientific atheism,” yet none of that is relevant to the question I’ve posed. You’ve dodged it for long enough: Do you acknowledge that memories and learning—central to human behavior—are rooted in physical processes in the brain? And if so, how does this mechanistic foundation undermine what you call "humanness"?

Your refusal to confront this isn’t philosophy; it’s intellectual cowardice dressed up as depth. Stop hiding behind vague rhetoric and address the actual point. If you’re incapable of doing so, then spare us your unending tangents and amateur psychoanalysis. You’ve run this game long enough, and it’s beyond tiresome. Answer the question or admit you can’t.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You’ve implied I’m "half-mad" for challenging your worldview.

I did put “half-mad” in quotes and I also did say that, these days, many people, jacked up on their pet enthusiasms, and twisted by life pressures, seem to me to veer toward obsessions, and perhaps that only means something neurotic.

I wrote:

The platform you describe, your tendency to intellectual tyranny, your overblown authoritarian attitude, your dismissiveness of other modes of knowing, and also your (as I understand it) twisted notions in regard to revamping education and the engineering of a new man who sees the manifest word as you do and conforms to your schema, does not in any sense inspire trust! Could I fairly say that you are *half-mad*? I might, but you’d have to grasp that I consider so much going on in the intellectual world as manifestations of mental dis-ease.

Again I do not think you could write out fairly what my “worldview” is. Yet I think I could write out yours in detail and easily. It does not have many moving parts.

I am not going to respond to your demand to “answer my question” because I actually have responded in intercalated comments. You need to read what I write more carefully and then, but only if you wish to, respond more fulsomely. I don’t make demands.

[BigMike]

You’ve implied I’m "half-mad" for challenging your worldview.

I did put “half-mad” in quotes and I also did say that, these days, many people, jacked up on their pet enthusiasms, and twisted by life pressures, seem to me to veer toward obsessions, and perhaps that only means something neurotic.

I wrote:

The platform you describe, your tendency to intellectual tyranny, your overblown authoritarian attitude, your dismissiveness of other modes of knowing, and also your (as I understand it) twisted notions in regard to revamping education and the engineering of a new man who sees the manifest word as you do and conforms to your schema, does not in any sense inspire trust! Could I fairly say that you are *half-mad*? I might, but you’d have to grasp that I consider so much going on in the intellectual world as manifestations of mental dis-ease.

Again I do not think you could write out fairly what my “worldview” is. Yet I think I could write out yours in detail and easily. It does not have many moving parts.

I am not going to respond to your demand to “answer my question” because I actually have responded in intercalated comments. You need to read what I write more carefully and then, but only if you wish to, respond more fulsomely. I don’t make demands.

Alexis,

You’ve once again proven my point with your evasions and circular rhetoric. You say I couldn’t write out your worldview fairly—exactly! Because you refuse to clearly explain it. You offer only fragments, vague allusions, and cryptic remarks about the "psyche of man" or "different orders of perception." How is anyone supposed to articulate your worldview when you refuse to lay it out in clear, comprehensible terms? This isn’t a failure on my part—it’s a direct consequence of your refusal to engage with clarity or honesty.

Meanwhile, you claim you could write out my worldview "easily" and "in detail." Of course, you could—because I’ve been painstakingly clear in explaining it. I’ve laid out my perspective, the deterministic framework it’s based on, and the evidence supporting it. I’ve done exactly what you won’t: state my position explicitly and defend it with specifics. So yes, it’s easy for you to write out my worldview—it’s been handed to you on a silver platter. The fact that you still won’t reciprocate speaks volumes.

And as for your claim that you’ve already answered my question in "intercalated comments," that’s utter nonsense. Scattered remarks and vague musings about metaphysical ideas don’t constitute an answer. I’ve asked you repeatedly to clarify your position on whether you acknowledge that learning and memory are grounded in physical brain processes. Instead of answering, you deflect, accuse me of not reading carefully, and dodge the question with condescension.

Let me spell it out: if you cannot or will not articulate your worldview in clear, direct terms, then stop pretending this is a discussion. You can’t expect others to engage meaningfully with a position you refuse to define. You’ve turned this into a farce, hiding behind rhetorical games while refusing to address the points I’ve raised.

You accuse me of "intellectual tyranny" and "overblown authoritarian attitudes." Let’s flip that around: what could be more tyrannical in a conversation than refusing to answer basic questions while demanding your vague, unarticulated position be treated as legitimate? It’s hypocritical, and it’s exhausting.

If you’re not going to answer directly, save us both the time and energy. Either clearly explain your worldview—what you believe, how it works, and why—or stop pretending this is a dialogue. Right now, it’s just you dodging and deflecting while refusing to engage with the rigor you demand from others. Enough.

[seeds]

Seeds, your 'detailed critiques' are nothing more than metaphysical musings...

Well, when confronted with impossible to resolve mysteries such as, for example,...

"...why is there somethingness rather than nothingness?..."

...or...

"...how did the 'somethingness' acquire consciousness?..."

...then, sometimes, "metaphysical musings" are all we have to work with.

...musings that don't address or challenge the fundamental principles of determinism, conservation laws, or the four fundamental forces. Raising unanswered questions about the origins of the universe or dark matter is not the same as disproving causality or determinism. If you want to refute my arguments, bring evidence or logic that contradicts these physical principles—anything less is just hand-waving.

I cannot disprove causality or determinism, nor would I even attempt to challenge the fundamental principles of the laws of conservation, or the four fundamental forces.

No, the simplest thing I can do in this particular situation is to reinvoke the words of Terence McKenna...

“Modern science is based on the principle ‘Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.’ The ‘one free miracle’ is the appearance of all the mass and energy in the universe and all the laws that govern it in a single instant from nothing.”

...and then point out to you that your theory of determinism expects us to grant you the "one free miracle" mentioned in the quote.

However, some of us are simply not that generous (or gullible).
_______

[Alexis Jacobi]

Let me spell it out: if you cannot or will not articulate your worldview in clear, direct terms, then stop pretending this is a discussion. You can’t expect others to engage meaningfully with a position you refuse to define. You’ve turned this into a farce, hiding behind rhetorical games while refusing to address the points I’ve raised.

You accuse me of "intellectual tyranny" and "overblown authoritarian attitudes." Let’s flip that around: what could be more tyrannical in a conversation than refusing to answer basic questions while demanding your vague, unarticulated position be treated as legitimate? It’s hypocritical, and it’s exhausting.

First, I have certainly been revealing aspects of my view of things — that amounts to worldview I think. But the on-going conversation has had to do with the question: Who is trustworthy?

As so a simple framework for my operative philosophy, that which operates in me in Carlyle’s sense and determines much else, is the understanding that something providential seems to have placed me, and “us”, into a world with all sorts of qualities, characteristics and limitations.

Should I have capitalized Providence? That would indicate that I actually do believe (understand) that a divine order has created and oversees our being here in this realm. I think that this is the central, the basic, underpinning to my view of things, and also, to be honest, what consciously or unconsciously irks you about me (and possibly those like me — religious nutters according to Atla () — who operate from this viewpoint.

Because I sense this “providential” intelligence, it should be obvious that 1) I cannot go along with you who live in a world absent the conception of such an over-arching intelligence, and who cannot refer, in himself, to an inner order of experience where the man, the ego, the persona, stands in relation to something larger; and 2) who negates from man and life that conscious human awareness that enables him to perceive, to realize, to respond to, those “higher promptings of the soul”, i.e. free moral choice. (But note that I very clearly do define man as living under tremendous limitations and that “conditioning” that is similar to your determinism).

You’ve turned this into a farce, hiding behind rhetorical games while refusing to address the points I’ve raised.

Well, at least in some sense this is a farce! Your position, in my view, is essentially farcical for the simple reason that it necessarily negates entire realms of understanding and knowledge about life that arise from and depend on other epistemologies. I am not here to”denying science” nor do I negate a great deal of science’s findings. It is simply that no matter what the structure of life is (e.g. your physiological picture for example) it does not change my (established and likely unalterable view) that there is much more for us here, and much more about our being here that can be known, than the rather dreary reductionist picture you have wedded yourself to. The man-in-a-laboratory clinical view that is the surrounding structure of your worldview.

Whose “epistemology” then is to be trusted? But the actual question is Trusted for what?

Hiding behind rhetorical games? That isn’t a fair characterization. I am essentially involved with, concerned about, other levels of understanding that do not — that cannot! — appear on your laboratory table of consideration. I think you are deeply involved with physiology but much less with philosophy.

If you and your •doctrines• (insofar as I understand them) ever did attain political power, I believe there’d be many sound reasons to fear those policies you’d put in motion. It is not me alone who reacted this way. And therefore to understand my position vis-à-vis you, you’d have to better understand just why that is.

But that is not a conversation you wish to have nor one that you are (at all) prepared for (I mean prepared in terms of background).

[BigMike]

Let me spell it out: if you cannot or will not articulate your worldview in clear, direct terms, then stop pretending this is a discussion. You can’t expect others to engage meaningfully with a position you refuse to define. You’ve turned this into a farce, hiding behind rhetorical games while refusing to address the points I’ve raised.

You accuse me of "intellectual tyranny" and "overblown authoritarian attitudes." Let’s flip that around: what could be more tyrannical in a conversation than refusing to answer basic questions while demanding your vague, unarticulated position be treated as legitimate? It’s hypocritical, and it’s exhausting.

First, I have certainly been revealing aspects of my view of things — that amounts to worldview I think. But the on-going conversation has had to do with the question: Who is trustworthy?

As so a simple framework for my operative philosophy, that which operates in me in Carlyle’s sense and determines much else, is the understanding that something providential seems to have placed me, and “us”, into a world with all sorts of qualities, characteristics and limitations.

Should I have capitalized Providence? That would indicate that I actually do believe (understand) that a divine order has created and oversees our being here in this realm. I think that this is the central, the basic, underpinning to my view of things, and also, to be honest, what consciously or unconsciously irks you about me (and possibly those like me — religious nutters according to Atla () — who operate from this viewpoint.

Because I sense this “providential” intelligence, it should be obvious that 1) I cannot go along with you who live in a world absent the conception of such an over-arching intelligence, and who cannot refer, in himself, to an inner order of experience where the man, the ego, the persona, stands in relation to something larger; and 2) who negates from man and life that conscious human awareness that enables him to perceive, to realize, to respond to, those “higher promptings of the soul”, i.e. free moral choice. (But note that I very clearly do define man as living under tremendous limitations and that “conditioning” that is similar to your determinism).

You’ve turned this into a farce, hiding behind rhetorical games while refusing to address the points I’ve raised.

Well, at least in some sense this is a farce! Your position, in my view, is essentially farcical for the simple reason that it necessarily negates entire realms of understanding and knowledge about life that arise from and depend on other epistemologies. I am not here to”denying science” nor do I negate a great deal of science’s findings. It is simply that no matter what the structure of life is (e.g. your physiological picture for example) it does not change my (established and likely unalterable view) that there is much more for us here, and much more about our being here that can be known, than the rather dreary reductionist picture you have wedded yourself to. The man-in-a-laboratory clinical view that is the surrounding structure of your worldview.

Whose “epistemology” then is to be trusted? But the actual question is Trusted for what?

Hiding behind rhetorical games? That isn’t a fair characterization. I am essentially involved with, concerned about, other levels of understanding that do not — that cannot! — appear on your laboratory table of consideration. I think you are deeply involved with physiology but much less with philosophy.

If you and your •doctrines• (insofar as I understand them) ever did attain political power, I believe there’d be many sound reasons to fear those policies you’d put in motion. It is not me alone who reacted this way. And therefore to understand my position vis-à-vis you, you’d have to better understand just why that is.

But that is not a conversation you wish to have nor one that you are (at all) prepared for (I mean prepared in terms of background).

Alexis,

You’ve written a lot here, yet you still haven’t directly answered the questions I’ve been asking throughout this conversation. You claim to be “revealing aspects” of your worldview, but your responses remain so abstract and wrapped in vague language that they fail to address the core issues. Let me spell out the specific unanswered questions once again, so there’s no room for confusion:

1. Do you acknowledge that memories are stored in the brain as physical alterations, through the strengthening and weakening of synaptic connections?
   This isn’t just a technicality—it’s central to the deterministic framework you keep dismissing. If you disagree with this foundational concept, explain why. If you agree, then explain how this fits—or doesn’t fit—with your insistence on “agency” and “volition.”
2. What is your mechanism for "higher promptings of the soul"?
   You refer to an “inner order” and “providential intelligence” that guides free moral choice. What do “inner order” and “providential intelligence” mean? Who (or what) does the advising, directing, ordering, or thinking associated with that “inner order” and “providential intelligence”? What exactly is this process? How does it work? Is it entirely separate from brain function? If so, how do you explain its interaction with the physical brain?
3. How does your worldview align with or contradict deterministic causation?
   You’ve consistently avoided providing a clear position on whether you reject deterministic explanations outright, or whether you’re simply layering additional metaphysical concepts onto them. If you accept determinism as a baseline, how does that square with your belief in “free moral choice”?

Your latest response is filled with assertions about my supposed “reductionism” and complaints that I “negate entire realms of understanding.” Yet you’ve failed to substantiate what these “realms of understanding” actually are or how they function. Saying that something “cannot appear on the laboratory table” is not an argument—it’s an evasion.

You also accuse me of not being prepared for the conversation, yet I’ve repeatedly laid out my position with clarity and specificity. You, on the other hand, keep deflecting with vague notions of epistemology and trust, never addressing the actual points at hand.

Here’s the reality: If you’re unwilling to answer these questions directly and coherently, then you’re not engaging in a meaningful discussion. This isn’t about trust—it’s about accountability. If your worldview cannot withstand clear scrutiny, then it’s not my arguments that are “farcical”; it’s your refusal to engage with them.

The questions stand, Alexis. Until you address them, everything else is just noise.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Those are all the wrong questions, BigMike. To engage “meaningfully” you will likely need to modify your modus operandi.

[Atla]

Those are all the wrong questions, BigMike. To engage “meaningfully” you will likely need to modify your modus operandi.

How 'likely'?

[Dubious]

Seeds, your 'detailed critiques' are nothing more than metaphysical musings...

Well, when confronted with impossible to resolve mysteries such as, for example,...

"...why is there somethingness rather than nothingness?..."

...or...

"...how did the 'somethingness' acquire consciousness?..."

...then, sometimes, "metaphysical musings" are all we have to work with.

...musings that don't address or challenge the fundamental principles of determinism, conservation laws, or the four fundamental forces. Raising unanswered questions about the origins of the universe or dark matter is not the same as disproving causality or determinism. If you want to refute my arguments, bring evidence or logic that contradicts these physical principles—anything less is just hand-waving.

I cannot disprove causality or determinism, nor would I even attempt to challenge the fundamental principles of the laws of conservation, or the four fundamental forces.

No, the simplest thing I can do in this particular situation is to reinvoke the words of Terence McKenna...

“Modern science is based on the principle ‘Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.’ The ‘one free miracle’ is the appearance of all the mass and energy in the universe and all the laws that govern it in a single instant from nothing.”

...and then point out to you that your theory of determinism expects us to grant you the "one free miracle" mentioned in the quote.

However, some of us are simply not that generous (or gullible).
_______

No! Modern science is incompatible with the absurdity quoted. Science is based on reasearch and discovery. Least of all is it meant to provide proof which is only applicable to logic and mathematics, not to science. It's not the function of science to prove anything and operates on no other principle except for the one provided which are all based on probability.

The quote implodes the moment he says that science is based of the principle of 'give us one free miracle...' since anything naturally occurring is not a miracle whether or not we can explain it at this or any other time.

But, for the sake of argument, let's use the word 'miracle' as employed in the quote. Now what? Does it in any way confute the fact that all the laws that govern as ramifications of this so-called miracle are by that very definition deterministic...whether or not you call it a miracle?

When an absurd statement is made it usually proves opposite to its intended effect. Mr. Mckenna should have used fewer psychedelics to swarm his neurons in making the wrong connections.

[BigMike]

Those are all the wrong questions, BigMike. To engage “meaningfully” you will likely need to modify your modus operandi.

Of course, they’re the "wrong questions"—because they demand clarity and coherence, and that’s the one thing you can’t provide. You seem to believe you’ve constructed this grand, profound theory of humanity and existence, but the only problem—the massive monkey-wrench in your machinery—is reality. Your ideas sound lofty and poetic until they’re held up to scrutiny, and then they crumble into a heap of vague, unsupported assertions.

Let’s be honest: you don’t even know what you mean half the time. You hide behind abstract language about “providential intelligence” and “higher promptings of the soul,” but when pressed to explain these ideas in concrete terms, you retreat into deflections about my “modus operandi” or claim the questions themselves are flawed. The truth is, you just want to live undisturbed in your own cozy little fairytale—a land of unicorns and rainbows where you can invoke metaphysical fluff without ever being held accountable for it.

Here’s the hard truth, Alexis: meaningful engagement requires more than just poetic musings. It requires definitions, evidence, and logical consistency—things you consistently refuse to provide. You’ve turned this conversation into a caricature of intellectual discourse, all so you can avoid confronting the reality that your ideas don’t hold up under even the mildest scrutiny.

Keep living in your fantasy if you like, but don’t expect me—or anyone else—to take it seriously until you can explain it in terms that make sense in the real world. And if you can’t do that, at least have the decency to admit it instead of pretending I’m the problem for asking you to be clear.

[BigMike]

Well, at least in some sense this is a farce! Your position, in my view, is essentially farcical for the simple reason that it necessarily negates entire realms of understanding and knowledge about life that arise from and depend on other epistemologies. I am not here to”denying science” nor do I negate a great deal of science’s findings. It is simply that no matter what the structure of life is (e.g. your physiological picture for example) it does not change my (established and likely unalterable view) that there is much more for us here, and much more about our being here that can be known, than the rather dreary reductionist picture you have wedded yourself to. The man-in-a-laboratory clinical view that is the surrounding structure of your worldview.

Alexis,

You throw around accusations of my worldview being "farcical" and "reductionist," claiming it negates "entire realms of understanding." Fine. I’ll issue you a challenge: Name one human trait, quality, or experience that you believe cannot be fully described or explained within the deterministic framework I’ve laid out. Just one.

Here’s how we’ll proceed: You’ll describe and explain that trait from your perspective, with all the metaphysical and poetic flourishes you need. I’ll then describe and explain it fully, based entirely on my deterministic worldview. Let’s see whose explanation stands up to scrutiny. Let’s see whose framework is clearer, more coherent, and grounded in reality.

You say I’m wedded to a "dreary reductionist picture," but all I see is you hand-waving about "other epistemologies" while dodging direct engagement with the details. Prove me wrong. Show me this “much more” that my deterministic framework supposedly negates. If you can’t, then it’s not my worldview that’s farcical—it’s your baseless insistence that mine falls short while refusing to demonstrate how yours measures up.

So, what will it be, Alexis? Put your money where your mouth is. Step up to the challenge or admit you can’t. Either way, let’s put this vague rhetoric to rest and get down to actual substance.

[promethean75]

"Name one human trait, quality, or experience that you believe cannot be fully described or explained within the deterministic framework I’ve laid out. Just one."

A French physicist falls into a hadron collider, is converted into a laser beam, and fired at a double slit in a sheet of metal. The physicist reports having passed through both slits unless and only if one of the other physicists looked at him.