Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[BigMike]

Alexis, you keep insisting that your consciousness “begins causal chains,” but you refuse—every single time—to explain how. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Mechanistically. Because if your “I” is doing causal work, then I’ll ask you directly:

Why must I explain how?

You see, in my view Existence — that things exist and that Awareness exists (goes on) — is non-explainable. It is ultimately mysterious and impossible to encapsulate or rationalize.

This is knowledge of a very old sort. Not the result of science experimentation, but knowledge gained in other ways.

I know and I accept that you hold this to no account! I know that you feel you have a non-reducible epistemological system! You have an explanation system that is “ultimate” and “absolute”.

It is simply that I view it incomplete. Not valueless but simply not inclusive enough.

You are a man speaking out of his age however. And stoned on your own intellectual vapors.

That’s the hallmark of beliefs that cannot be tested, verified, or falsified.

Oh you could certainly verify. But you’d have to access modalities or perhaps techniques (?) that are unfamiliar to you.

Alexis, are you seriously implying that your consciousness causes physical effects without a mechanism, and then hand-waving it away as “knowledge of a very old sort”? What exactly are you describing here—psychokinesis? Is your “I” moving atoms? Are you bending reality with your soul’s fingertips while the rest of us poor fools are stuck with electromagnetism and kinetic energy?

You want to claim your “awareness begins causal chains”—physical chains—yet you admit you can’t say how, and then insist you don’t have to. That’s not just evasive—it’s ridiculous. You're asking everyone to accept that you’re exempt from the laws of physics because you feel it deeply. That’s not philosophy. That’s spiritual fan fiction.

And don’t pretend that I’m the one high on “intellectual vapors” when you’re the one dancing around testability and mechanism like they’re beneath you. If your “knowledge” requires special “modalities” or “techniques” that conveniently can’t be explained, shared, or scrutinized, then what you’ve got isn’t knowledge. It’s just ritualized ignorance wrapped in grand language.

You say existence and awareness are ultimately “mysterious.” Fine. But then sit down and admit that what you’re doing isn’t explaining anything—it’s asserting mystery as if it’s insight.

And here's the kicker: if your “I” causes physical events, but you can’t tell me what force it uses, what interaction it triggers, or what particle it acts through—then yes, Alexis, you are literally describing magic and calling it philosophy.

So again, I ask: what are you invoking here?
If your consciousness causes physical events without physical properties, then say it plainly—you believe in mind-over-matter sorcery.
And if not, then quit dodging and start talking physics.

[Atla]

Atla, you just did a full somersault into the contradiction you were trying to avoid—and faceplanted hard.

You say consciousness “probably involves all four fundamental forces.” Cute. But here’s the problem: all four of those are interactions. That means they occur between things that have physical properties—like mass, charge, or spin. So if consciousness employs any of them—let alone all—then it must be composed of, or instantiated by, physical stuff. Which means it obeys the same laws as everything else.

And if it obeys those laws, guess what? It’s not free. It’s caused. It’s determined. It’s a part of the machinery, not some magical overseer pulling levers from a metaphysical balcony.

Then you try to accuse me of “mystical nonsense” because I reject the cartoon version of consciousness you’re defending. No, Atla. I’m not pretending consciousness “doesn’t exist.” I’m saying it’s not special in the way you want it to be. It exists, yes—as a physical, emergent process. But it doesn’t float above physics. It’s not an independent force. It’s not the CEO of your brain. It’s a summary—the brain’s internal self-monitoring. That’s all. It has no powers of its own. It doesn't start causal chains. It rides them.

So if your “I” operates via gravity, EM, strong and weak forces, then congratulations: you just admitted it’s governed entirely by physics. You walked straight into determinism and didn’t notice the trap door slam shut behind you.

You don’t need to accuse me of hogwash. You served yourself the full buffet.

You are of course a bit disadvantaged, after telling you many times that I'm a determinist myself and don't believe in magical free will outside determinism, you are still somehow entirely incapable of processing this information. At this point, this has to be a sign of a learning disorder, so I won't go hard on you.

But to the point: oh, did you win the Nobel-prize for proving that human consciousness is just "a summary—the brain’s internal self-monitoring", instead of both a summary and an actor at the same time? How did you prove it?

Did you know that consciousness is part of deterministic causal chains, so consciousness is both a conscequence and a cause? Because that's what determinism implies.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You achieve the opposite of what you seek to achieve, Mike. No one seems to go along with you. Except Accelafine I guess. Maybe Belinda.

With me you cause me to redouble my sense of commitment to what I understand to be truer than your reductive philosophy. Not by negation of certain principles however.

[BigMike]

Much more that I can use here:

[Latin intelligere — inter and legere — to choose between, to discern; Greek nous; German Vernunft, Verstand; French intellect; Italian intelletto).

The faculty of thought. As understood in Catholic philosophical literature it signifies the higher, spiritual, cognitive power of the soul. It is in this view awakened to action by sense, but transcends the latter in range. Amongst its functions are attention, conception, judgment, reasoning, reflection, and self-consciousness. All these modes of activity exhibit a distinctly suprasensuous element, and reveal a cognitive faculty of a higher order than is required for mere sense-cognitions. In harmony, therefore, with Catholic usage, we reserve the terms intellect, intelligence, and intellectual to this higher power and its operations, although many modern psychologists are wont, with much resulting confusion, to extend the application of these terms so as to include sensuous forms of the cognitive process. By thus restricting the use of these terms, the inaccuracy of such phrases as "animal intelligence" is avoided. Before such language may be legitimately employed, it should be shown that the lower animals are endowed with genuinely rational faculties, fundamentally one in kind with those of man. Catholic philosophers, however they differ on minor points, as a general body have held that intellect is a spiritual faculty depending extrinsically, but not intrinsically, on the bodily organism. The importance of a right theory of intellect is twofold: on account of its bearing on epistemology, or the doctrine of knowledge; and because of its connexion with the question of the spirituality of the soul.

I do not negate the physical sensual basis. I say there is something else — and yes I cannot explain it through a proof! — that is operative in our World.

Alexis, quoting pages of Catholic metaphysical theory doesn't make your position any more grounded—it just makes the smoke thicker. All you've done here is offer a sanctified restatement of the same dodge: that there's something else—something suprasensuous, spiritual, and unprovable—operating behind the scenes. And when pressed, all you can say is: “I can’t explain it, but it’s real.”

That’s not an argument. It’s a dogma with footnotes.

You talk about the intellect as if wrapping it in Latin and theology gives it special properties—like “depending extrinsically but not intrinsically on the bodily organism.” What does that even mean in operational terms? Show me one example where thought happens without a functioning brain. Just one. You can’t. Because the moment the brain shuts down, everything you’re trying to mystify disappears.

Let’s be honest: you’ve traded in empirical accountability for romantic grandeur. You want intellect to be “more than” the physical because you can’t stand the idea that something as sublime as thought could come from messy neurons and biochemistry. But the facts don’t care how sacred your abstractions sound. If intellect is real, and it does something, then it obeys the laws of physics. Otherwise, it's imagined agency—a narrative glued onto physical processes after they occur.

You keep saying “I do not negate the physical.” But every word you write contradicts that, because you’re constantly pushing for something above, beyond, or outside of it—yet never define or demonstrate what that “something” actually is, or how it works.

You say you can’t explain it with proof—and you're right. You can't. Because you have no proof. Just a deeply emotional attachment to the idea that humans are somehow not subject to the same causal scaffolding as everything else in the universe.

Let me be crystal clear:
If it can’t be tested, traced, or falsified, then it doesn’t belong in a conversation about how reality works. It belongs in personal reflection, religious belief, or poetry. But don’t dress it up as philosophy and pretend it has explanatory power.

What you're really doing is shielding your intuition from scrutiny—then calling it sacred because it's untouchable. But that's not profound, Alexis.
That's just fear in a robe, muttering Latin to itself.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You say existence and awareness are ultimately “mysterious.” Fine. But then sit down and admit that what you’re doing isn’t explaining anything—it’s asserting mystery as if it’s insight.

Hold on. Explanation in the grandest sense is your game!

I do not say that I can explain what — as I have suggested — is not explainable.

I say that much in life, and about our being here and also our navigation through life, is definitely mysterious. I mean by that non-explainable through scientistic notions. Other means of understanding and description are needed.

There is knowledge that comes to us from insight and intuition. That is a given, for me.

[Alexis Jacobi]

What you're really doing is shielding your intuition from scrutiny—then calling it sacred because it's untouchable.

No, that’s what you are saying about what I say!

[Alexis Jacobi]

sacred [Middle English, past participle of sacren, to consecrate, from Old French sacrer, from Latin sacrāre, from sacer, sacr-, sacred; see sak- in Indo-European roots.]

I don’t have much of an idea of what is sacred. That is a whole other dimension.

[henry quirk]

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, those things: free will and morality and God Himself. In that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours, this meat machine world, is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you think about it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But our play-world licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on God's side even if there's no God and I will live as a free will and moral being even if there's no free will or morality. -With apologies to Mr. Lewis.

[BigMike]

Honestly, what’s most exhausting isn’t the endless spirals of mysticism, hand-waving, or metaphor—it’s the sheer fear of facts. The terror people feel when you put reality on the table, plain and unadorned, with its cause-and-effect mechanics, its indifference to ego, and its utter refusal to flatter anyone’s metaphysical fantasies.

You show them how consciousness emerges from brains, how behavior is caused, how morality can be built from compassion and truth rather than guilt and myth—and instead of curiosity or engagement, they recoil like it’s some existential threat.

It’s not. It’s just reality. And it’s more beautiful, more coherent, and more humane than any soul-soaked sermon or pseudo-spiritual daydream ever written.

But they don’t want it. They want mystery for the sake of mystery. They want loopholes for personal agency, and poetry where precision is needed. Fine.

I’ve laid it out as clearly as it can be laid. If the only response left is hand-waving and “you just don’t get it,” then we’re done here.

I’ll bow out—not because I’ve lost, but because I value my time.
Reality doesn't need me to defend it.

It just keeps being true whether you accept it or not.

[Atla]

The guy wasn't even quite arguing for determinism here, but for the idea that consciousness is just a phantom, an afterimage. That's some mystical rubbish.

[Alexis Jacobi]

it’s the sheer fear of facts.

No, not so much in my case. I grasp the “facts” you work with. Rather apprehension about consequences.

You desire this to be about facts. And you want to control the admissible facts. You must exclude others to do so however. And that exclusion (negation) is consequential.

Ok, enough! Pay up BigMike. You’ve racked up a small fortune in therapy fees. You are at $7,422.50 and unless I get it today I will send collection after your tramp ass! (I’ll accept 50% if you are in a tight spot however). PM me and get it settled.

[Belinda]

Otherwise, what you’re calling a “cause” is just a narrative your brain tells itself after the real work is done—a shadow of the machinery, not the engine.

You are going to turn over this same assertion again & again & again & again until you expire!

You are fucked up Mike! It’s a neurosis not a coherent position for a man to hold.

One of those odd “mind viruses” that are making the rounds.

Some narratives and post hoc explanations exert a lot of push in the form of social constructions.

[henry quirk]

What a remarkable inversion.

This...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...is thought, by Mike, to be more beautiful, more coherent, and more humane than self-direction, self-reliance, and self-responsibility.

What kinda nightmare has to be goin' on in a person's head that he finds bein' a meat machine more satisfying than bein' a free will?

[Skepdick]

What a remarkable inversion.

This...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...is thought, by Mike, to be more beautiful, more coherent, and more humane than self-direction, self-reliance, and self-responsibility.

What kinda nightmare has to be goin' on in a person's head that he finds bein' a meat machine more satisfying than bein' a free will?

Somebody so disempowered by circumstances he relinquishes even the little bit of control they do have.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis, quoting pages of Catholic metaphysical theory doesn't make your position any more grounded—it just makes the smoke thicker. All you've done here is offer a sanctified restatement of the same dodge: that there's something else—something suprasensuous, spiritual, and unprovable—operating behind the scenes. And when pressed, all you can say is: “I can’t explain it, but it’s real.”

Being a reasonable man, I certainly understand what you are driving at. Please “make no mistake about this” as people say these days. We all must understand that a former description-system collapsed. Scholasticism essentially, right?

The Catholic metaphysic that expresses the sense in intellectus is, to be more precise, an even older idea. It happens to still have some life in Catholic traditionalism. No one on this forum seems to have been influenced by Catholic thought, however for me it is really an agglomeration of earlier European thought. And yes, I do understand what happened to the former metaphysics when the 17th century rolled around.

It is that ensuing devastation (encroaching nihilism) that Nietzsche spoke about that became an on-going process, and like a huge wave that would crash over people.

Inevitable, perhaps even necessary.

So, and only if you are interested, I am a counter-nihilist and — I state this plainly — someone with amphibious (intellectual) characteristics. That is why, despite rationalism’s assault, I feel it fair to resort to poetic description (and this irks you to no end).

You come here like a conquering warrior with the intention of overturning what you have decided are mistruths with the raw, irreducible physical facts of existence. Obviously, your first assault will be any of those clinging like desperate children to the religious myths that you have the sharpened sword to cut to shreds.

But my position is that all Stories are concocted descriptions that are receptacles of idea-values. Let the images flickering on the wall of the cave-screen dance and change, in this sense it is all the same. Yet behind the appearances is that which has set all appearances in motion. And it is my view that “intuition” is some part of the key to deciphering what stands behind appearances.

For you nothing “stands behind” anything at all! For you, and in this sense, the idea of “meaning” and meaningfulness — certainly in the metaphorical sense — is a useless, erroneous idea. You cannot conceive that your ideas are just a concretization of a selected set of facts. In that sense another variant of Story. But I do not deny the physical facts of science, but rather the message in the contrived Story of your scientistic religiousness.

But do you notice how your chosen and preferred conversation attracts so many? Your adamancy, driven by what looks like neurosis, puts into relief the situation we are all in.

A godless world really. A world that should be directed by a coherent intelligence but which has now been defined as random, senseless, or driven by motive factors (determinism) that has literally no sense to it at all.

I do not care very much if you understand the term “intellect” as having ground or not Mike. And I understand that you really & truly believe that you can reduce Existence to 4 fundamental physics facts! And that you can develop an explanation-system that displaces and supplants all others.

It is for this reason that you interest me and also why I see your ideas as immature and dangerous.