Hmmm (atheist, agnostic, recall, God, religion)

Atheist_Dave · #1 03-27-2006, 02:30 PM

Something is bothering me, this is probably pretty basic stuff, but here goes.

Me and my friend were discussing the human brain, memory, and imagination. It was going fine until he told me that we can not imagine anything we have never seen, I said, that sounds reasonable...

Later on I was thinking to myself then it hit me, (atheists everywhere prepare yourselves), then how did we imagine the concept of an omniscient being, i.e god. I pondered it for a long time and I have bupcas, Im stumped, maybe it's time to change my religion to agnostic

Someone help on this, I haven't been able to find the relevent sites to research it, input would be appreciated.

Peace x

angellous_evangellous · #2 03-27-2006, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atheist_Dave

Something is bothering me, this is probably pretty basic stuff, but here goes.

Me and my friend were discussing the human brain, memory, and imagination. It was going fine until he told me that we can not imagine anything we have never seen, I said, that sounds reasonable...

Later on I was thinking to myself then it hit me, (atheists everywhere prepare yourselves), then how did we imagine the concept of an omniscient being, i.e god. I pondered it for a long time and I have bupcas, Im stumped, maybe it's time to change my religion to agnostic

Someone help on this, I haven't been able to find the relevent sites to research it, input would be appreciated.

Peace x

I disagree. We can imagine stuff that we have never seen and we use that which we know as a metaphor. That's why we can describe God as omniscient.

Obviously, none of us are omniscient, but we do know that we have knowledge, and the things that we do know are very useful to us.

Simply put, God is the ubermench. He's superman, and he is described in superhuman terms. That's all.

SoyLeche · #3 03-27-2006, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atheist_Dave

Something is bothering me, this is probably pretty basic stuff, but here goes.

Me and my friend were discussing the human brain, memory, and imagination. It was going fine until he told me that we can not imagine anything we have never seen, I said, that sounds reasonable...

Later on I was thinking to myself then it hit me, (atheists everywhere prepare yourselves), then how did we imagine the concept of an omniscient being, i.e god. I pondered it for a long time and I have bupcas, Im stumped, maybe it's time to change my religion to agnostic

Someone help on this, I haven't been able to find the relevent sites to research it, input would be appreciated.

Peace x

I'm not sure I agree with the statement. George Lucas immagined a Wookie before he had ever seen one. A good number of inventions and works of art were immagined before they were ever seen. Maybe I'm missing something....

angellous_evangellous · #4 03-27-2006, 02:39 PM

Dave,

I think that I may have found a helpful resource:

http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/nthomas/

standing_alone · #5 03-27-2006, 02:40 PM

I'm not smart so I can't give you a profound response, but I would disagree with your friend (assuming he is referring to physical sight) that we can't imagine something we have never seen. Imagination can often involve fantasy-type thoughts - things you've never seen. I mean, I can imagine some kind of monster or something, but I've never seen one. I've seen people's own imagined ideas of them (put down on paper, say), but the imaginations had to start somewhere, so you need not have seen something to imagine it, in my opinion. Maybe imagination works off of things we've witnessed in the past - you recall something and it helps you form something in your imagination loosely based on it, but you need not have seen something to imagine it. So maybe things we've seen in the past can shape our imagination, but the things we imagine are things we've never seen. It also makes me think of inventors. If they could not physically see what they wanted to invent, how could they have imagined it? I don't know. This is just a bunch of rambling at best, I suppose.

Atheist_Dave · #6 03-27-2006, 02:44 PM

His thoughts are that, anything imagined is simple images you have seen, coagulated, i.e imagine a gold mountain, with a cabin at the bottom, and a lake, your mind will collect images and mix them up. Lock a baby in a room, let it grow up with no stimulus, would it be able to imagine anything? (I really want to disagree with him, i really do)

angellous_evangellous · #7 03-27-2006, 02:46 PM

OK, I have a quote from our expert that supports my response.
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/nt...m-im/im-im.htm

This is from the section §3.2 Mental Pictures and Creative Imagination

"Likewise, more modern technology suggests that we might also be able to "morph" our mental pictures, stretching, squashing, and bending their components into new forms."

angellous_evangellous · #8 03-27-2006, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atheist_Dave

His thoughts are that, anything imagined is simple images you have seen, coagulated, i.e imagine a gold mountain, with a cabin at the bottom, and a lake, your mind will collect images and mix them up. Lock a baby in a room, let it grow up with no stimulus, would it be able to imagine anything? (I really want to disagree with him, i really do)

This would violate other developmental principles.