Assigning Human Qualities to God

[McBell]

Because last I checked, one needs a brain to think.

Seems to me everyone "assigns human qualities to God".
to some degree or another.

God gets angry? Anger is a product of ego. Why do you assume God has an ego?

Exodus 5:20

I could go on all day about statements I've heard where people assign such human qualities to God.

Is it not plausible that God has none of these human qualities? Is it not possible that God just is?

Is it not possible that God spoke the truth when He describes Himself in the Bible?

I mean, when God Himself flat out says He is jealous God, who am I to argue?

 

[Jainarayan]

Do you assign human qualities to God? Why?

I do. It makes God more relatable. Bhagavad Gita 12.5 For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied.

We are sensory beings and experience the world with our senses. Moreover, my scriptures say he takes on human (or sometimes animal or hybrid forms) to relate to us. Keep in mind my image of an anthropomorphized God is without the emotions of jealousy, revenge, unjustified anger, hatred, ego. He is without needs, desires or wants.

Is it not presumptuous to assume God thinks? Does God have a brain? Because last I checked, one needs a brain to think.

My anthropomorphized God does. It’s part and parcel of his taking a form like ours.

God wants? Why do you assume God has desire?

Just the desire for our well-being, which is the reason he has incarnated to restore order.

God gets angry? Anger is a product of ego. Why do you assume God has an ego?

Situational anger, anger at an event or series of events. In my tradition God does not get personally offended or angry.

Is it not plausible that God has none of these human qualities? Is it not possible that God just is?

Yes absolutely... the deist God.

 

[PureX]

Perhaps we aren't referring to the same thing with the word agency. I'm talking about a conscious agent. There very well may be no such thing that isn't a product of this universe like man and my dog. To say that there clearly is more is to be claiming that one's psychological tendencies can't possibly be deceiving him, that his intuition are clearly correct.

I get your point, but I think you're "jumping the gun" a bit, here. "Agency" does not automatically imply a personality, or even consciousness (as we know it). Only willed intent. Existence as we experience it is the result of a controlled process. Parameters have been set, energy has been applied, and as they interact, what we know of as existence, results. The "agency" is inherent in this controlled expression of energy. It is not random. It is not chaotic. It is controlled action, and that controlled action produces a specific result. This is the "agency". What lies behind it, of course, remains a mystery. Lots of people imbue this mystery with consciousness, or conscious intent; which is the topic of this thread. But that comes after the recognition of agency, by the means I mentioned. That recognition of agency is near universal among humans. And has been for a very long time. And so is the mystery of whatever is behind it.

Order implies purpose? Not to me.

That's a logical problem you need to address. Honestly. And until you do, this whole conversation will just go around in circles.

Agreed, but you seem to be arguing that this is a good thing.

If you want the most control of your world - to navigate it in a way that maximizes the desirable and minimizes the undesirable - you need to have the most accurate map of it possible. You need to understand how it really works to predict outcomes successfully.

Our "maps" are not real. They are not 'the world'. The ideas we carry around in our minds about what is real, and what isn't, are fictional. They are artificial representations. Approximations of a reality and truth that we can only access in a very limited and unclear way. And once we realize this, we also realize that we are trapped in and by our own unknowing. And for we humans, this generates a very profound fear. (Because for we humans, the unknown equals vulnerability, and the profoundly unknowable equals a profound and non-resolvable vulnerability.)

From my perspective, you have deluded yourself into thinking that somehow science is, or will resolve this vulnerability for us. But it will not. Because it cannot. Science does not allow or enable us to transcend the limitations of our own humanity.

Disagree. I have a different method of deciding what is true than a faith-based thinker, which is probably why my conclusions are radically different from theirs. My beliefs are derived from observation and experience. Theirs come from faith. Faith cannot be a path to truth given that anything or its mutually exclusive polar opposite can be believed by simply guessing and believing one's guesses are facts, knowing that at least one of them must be wrong. Faith is why there are so man gods and religions. Empiricism is why there is only one periodic table. I choose the latter method, and it is most definitely not "exactly the same" or "no different."

This is all irrelevant when it comes to the profound unknowing that the "God" ideal is dealing with.

Disagree again. I am not escaping not knowing with atheism. I am escaping pretending that I know.

Everyone is "pretending to know". It's what we humans do. What we call "reality" is a pretense of reality in our minds, based on our very limited experiences, and on our very limited capacity for making sense of them. And everyone thinks their pretense is the most accurate, because it's based on their limited experience and capacity for understanding. So, of course, it's what makes the most sense to them. And that includes you and me.

I notice that you haven't ever addressed the question of how a secular humanist would be better off with a god belief, although I've explained how one is better off without one if one can do that, and you have not rebutted that..

I have no idea what you mean by a "secular humanist". Pretty much all human beings recognize that great mystery behind the "agency" of existence. How we choose to deal with our profound vulnerability to that mystery is a big part of who we are as individuals. And I have to presume that how we each choose to deal with it is based on what produces the best results, for us, in our experience of life.

 

[blü 2]

Because you do not know something or have not been shown something does not render it nonexistent.

I said nothing to the contrary.

"We" don't need to determine anything. You do you. I'll do me.

"We" don't know the answer to my question, which is exactly and all that I said.

 

[SalixIncendium]

"We" don't know the answer to my question, which is exactly and all that I said.

Again, I'll thank you to not speak for me.

 

[Bird123]

I think a sticking point here is defining terms. Thinking is a process of the brain. Plain and simple. It would appear you are conflating "thinking" with "sentience" or "existence." I never said one needed a brain to exist or even to be sentient. However, one does need a brain to think or to have intellect. My true nature has not brain, because I have yet to figure out a way to keep it alive and bring it with me when my body dies.

You are going to Discover you aren't going to want to take that physical body with you. You aren't going to miss it.

This physical world has so much sensory input that at a very young age one is seduced into thinking the physical world is all there is. Find a dark quiet room away from all distractions. Focus inward. Say to yourself " It's Me" That is who you really are.

The connection between our spiritual self and the physical world is made in the brain. This connection traps one to the physical laws of this universe. Your body is the transportation but you are driving it.

All your feeling and thinking, you will take with you. If it were any other way, God's system could not work.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[rational experiences]

Do you assign human qualities to God? Why?

Is it not presumptuous to assume God thinks? Does God have a brain? Because last I checked, one needs a brain to think.

God wants? Why do you assume God has desire?

God gets angry? Anger is a product of ego. Why do you assume God has an ego?

I could go on all day about statements I've heard where people assign such human qualities to God.

Is it not plausible that God has none of these human qualities? Is it not possible that God just is?

Humans. Two sexes.

Never is any human self their owned human history as two other humans as adults. One with sperm. One with ovary.

Your life human baby not theirs.

Consciousness is self adult owned.

Introduced machines not God. Built by humans as adults controlled by humans as adults.

Push buttons on machines as parent humans pretending they are aliens first owning machines as humans. Claiming who invented humans.

The gods. Aliens. Yet their science thesis just a theory O circle and not the planet gods. Remembering life belief human pre exists. First science stories O planets as gods powers.

Relevant to fake human psyche beliefs today. About God or gods.

The scenario today about human mentality.

The reason human living is possessed in brain mind by designer human thesis to machine causes.

About gods in a human story told thesis. Living as a human first.

Prove two humans claiming I am an alien pushing buttons and really believe it.

Not believing they were never their human parents. Yet were just a human baby.

Not even believing sex created them. Instead claiming as Baby to adult human I began as an alien. As machine button pusher conscious advice.

Machines.

Reason. Self possessed by machine history.

Lie and lie in group organised human control to lie and coerce. Just as machine button pushers.

Saying my alien self by machine invented the life of a human. Yet are human theirselves.

What subliminal possession was discussed for. Human advice.

 

[blü 2]

Again, I'll thank you to not speak for me.

Is that a claim that you have such a definition of God? If so, grateful you share, since no one else seems to have one.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Is that a claim that you have such a definition of God? If so, grateful you share, since no one else seems to have one.

Nope. I'm not and advocate of making claims for others.

 

[Marcion]

God (Brahma or Parama Purusha) needs no brain, but nevertheless God dreams up the whole universe.
Taraka Brahma however may temporarily associate with the shape of a human body to help evolved living beings to speed up their spiritual liberation from bondage.

 

[SalixIncendium]

You are going to Discover you aren't going to want to take that physical body with you. You aren't going to miss it.

Of course not. My "taking my brain with me" comment was tongue-in-cheek.

This physical world has so much sensory input that at a very young age one is seduced into thinking the physical world is all there is.

Yes. A very astute observation.

When my younger daughter was born, I would just watch her for hours with how she reacted to the stimulus in her newly found environment, and I was fascinated in seeing her pureness without yet having been conditioned by and attached to it...before learning to be human.

Find a dark quiet room away from all distractions. Focus inward. Say to yourself " It's Me" That is who you really are.

Another useful practice in such an environment is to rather than say, "It's me," is to consider what is not me, say, "not this," and simply be in what remains.

The connection between our spiritual self and the physical world is made in the brain. This connection traps one to the physical laws of this universe. Your body is the transportation but you are driving it.

Liken this body to a chariot. The mind is the reins, the intellect is the charioteer, the senses are the horses, and sense objects are the road. I am the passenger.

All your feeling and thinking, you will take with you. If it were any other way, God's system could not work.

I'm not sure this is the case. What I'm thinking/feeling is a part of the subtle body. While I'm confident that what lies in the causal body (experience/karma) is taken with me after the death of the body/mind complex (until liberation), I'm not sure all the qualities of the subtle body survive death of the body/mind complex. If that were the case, many more people would recall thoughts and feelings from previous incarnations.

 

[ameyAtmA]

God (Brahma or Parama Purusha) needs no brain, but nevertheless God dreams up the whole universe.
Taraka Brahma however may temporarily associate with the shape of a human body to help evolved living beings to speed up their spiritual liberation from bondage.

Exactly. Very well said.
Essentially Bramh' (Brahman', God) is NirguN but also simultaneously SaguN and TArak, and can do whatever S/He wants!
A majority are in the framework of God as the SaguN and TArak (savior) while a subset of these also acknowledge the NirguN.
Who are we to deny that, take that away from them, or force everyone to stay in the nirguN BrahmanJyoti and never raise their "head" ? Or question the very SaguNa Brahman for being an intelligent Friend, Guru, shelter, loving, reciprocal, guide and protector or say that humans are projecting that on the SaguN?

Even if my experience says that I am NirguN and the entire SaguN is within me, that I am Time and Space as well, and also that I am one with KRshNa, there are so many negative energies and harmful/negative spirits in the antariksha. By chance, if after death of the body, if I wake up from the nirguN samAdhi, I would rather be "at the Lotus Feet of Shri KRshNa, 'my' Savior (TArak), in consciousness of Him, and not at some random place / in a random consciousness surrounded by potentially negative energy. Only then can I (optionally) help any spirits to elevate without them hurting me.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

"Agency" does not automatically imply a personality, or even consciousness (as we know it). Only willed intent.

This is how I am using the word (from Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World ):

"we infer agency behind the patterns we observe in a practice I call “agenticity”: the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents."

So we weren't talking about the same thing. As I understand your usage of the word, agency also applies to the unconscious laws of nature. And I don't understand how you can say that willed intent exists absent consciousness.

In any event, when I am talking about a god, I am talking about a conscious agent with intent, something able to envision a future state and cause it to be.

But getting back to my original comment, as one strips away the human qualities from a god concept, one all elements of mind are gone - consciousness, thoughts, memories, desires, preferences, and consciousness, eventually we are no longer talking about what I call a god. These features that we are removing are what distinguishes a god from a multiverse or the laws of physics. It's not helpful to me to conflate all of these as having agency.

Order implies purpose? Not to me. That's a creationist argument. Neither order, pattern, nor complexity guarantee an intelligent designer.

That's a logical problem you need to address. Honestly. And until you do, this whole conversation will just go around in circles.

What I said is self-evidently true. Unconscious processes can generate order from chaos. A crystal is a very ordered structure, but is not evidence of intelligence. Remember, the ID people in search of physical evidence of an intelligent designer, were searching for irreducible and specified complexity, not just complexity. The understood that complexity alone does not require intelligence or intent.

Are you familiar with the concept of a dissipative structure, which is an organized, far from equilibrium structure that assembles itself spontaneously under certain circumstances, a topic discussed at length in Prigogine's book Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature?

From Wiki:

"A dissipative structure is characterized by the spontaneous appearance of symmetry breaking (anisotropy) and the formation of complex, sometimes chaotic, structures where interacting particles exhibit long range correlations. Examples in everyday life include convection, turbulent flow, cyclones, hurricanes and living organisms."

Once again, neither order nor complexity require an intelligent agent.

Our "maps" are not real. They are not 'the world'. The ideas we carry around in our minds about what is real, and what isn't, are fictional. They are artificial representations. Approximations of a reality and truth that we can only access in a very limited and unclear way.

Yes, of course maps are not the same as that which is mapped. That's irrelevant. If they accurately map some aspect of reality, then we can navigate that area successfully, as with a literal road map. The lines on the map are not the roads they represent, but if the map is accurate, one can travel those roads effectively. My mental map tells me that I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier. If that is accurate, when I walk five blocks south and three blocks west from my home, I will be at the pier (desired outcome). If my map is wrong, I will not end up at the pier (undesired outcome)

We use our maps to control or predict outcomes. The better the map and the better we understand how the world actually works, the more we can produce desired outcomes and avoid undesirable ones. If one's map includes a god that doesn't exist, but which is believed to be protecting one, as with my Mexican neighbors who believe that the virus is no threat to them and thus don't wear masks or request vaccines, his map will guide him improperly (undesirable outcome).

And for we humans, this generates a very profound fear. (Because for we humans, the unknown equals vulnerability, and the profoundly unknowable equals a profound and non-resolvable vulnerability.)

Sorry, but I can't relate to many of the things you say characterize the human condition, such as this. As I've explained before, the great unknowns don't trouble me at all. I am perfectly content not getting answers to unanswerable questions. This does not cause dread in me. I understand my vulnerability as a flesh and blood organism that can be extinguished at any time and without warning. Still, no angst there.

You refer to how the majority of the people in the world are - most have god beliefs, most live with little control over their lives, most feel vulnerable and are afraid, most need answers to the great mysteries (even if they have to make one up), and the like. I'm aware that this is the case, but still, I don't identify with any of that personally. That's not my life. I do not feel fearful. Being vulnerable is just a fact of life, not a cause of ongoing fear. Not having all the answers is as well.

And I have all the power I can use. I don't require much, just control over the circumstances of my life, which I have.

Disagree again. I am not escaping not knowing with atheism. I am escaping pretending that I know.

Everyone is "pretending to know". It's what we humans do. What we call "reality" is a pretense of reality in our minds, based on our very limited experiences, and on our very limited capacity for making sense of them.

Well, here you are again including me with the majority. I don't pretend to know anything, including the answers to the questions that others answer with, "God did it." Sorry again, but I know the limits of my knowledge and don't pretend to know more than I do. Why would I?

I notice that you haven't ever addressed the question of how a secular humanist would be better off with a god belief, although I've explained how one is better off without one if one can do that, and you have not rebutted that..

I have no idea what you mean by a "secular humanist". Pretty much all human beings recognize that great mystery behind the "agency" of existence. How we choose to deal with our profound vulnerability to that mystery is a big part of who we are as individuals. And I have to presume that how we each choose to deal with it is based on what produces the best results, for us, in our experience of life.

I still don't see an answer to my question here.

From Wiki:

"Secular humanism, often simply called humanism, is a philosophy or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision making. Secular humanism posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity. It does not, however, assume that humans are either inherently good or evil, nor does it present humans as being superior to nature. Rather, the humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of secular humanism is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology—be it religious or political—must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. Along with this, an essential part of secular humanism is a continually adapting search for truth, primarily through science and philosophy. Many secular humanists derive their moral codes from a philosophy of utilitarianism, ethical naturalism, or evolutionary ethics, and some advocate a science of morality."

If that's a distraction, substitute 'satisfied atheist' for secular humanist. So I will ask you again: What do you think such a person would gain with a god belief?

I suspect that you are projecting yourself onto all of humanity, and feel as if your doubts and fears that are assuaged with a god belief are universal. If that were true for me, don't you think I'd be in a religion or hold some kind of comforting belief? You seem to believe that people like me are making a mistake with atheism (I recall you in the past expressing frustration that people some people have stopped looking for gods), and that we would be better off if we were searching for or believing in a god.

I keep telling you that I don't find value there, and to please tell me what the benefit you think is there for a person comfortable without a god belief. And you never give an answer, which I assume is because there is none.

Incidentally, a god belief isn't a possibility for me anyway. I'd have to return to faith-based thinking, which I consider a mistake, a logical error. I'm a strong believer in not accumulating roads on one's map that aren't out there, that is, wrong ideas, and I know of no better way to accumulate wrong ideas than to shut down critical thinking and just believe, were that even a possibility. So even if you convinced me that there was benefit in a god belief, it still wouldn't be an option for me.

Still, I'd like to know what you think I'm missing out on.

 

[PureX]

This is how I am using the word (from Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World ):

"we infer agency behind the patterns we observe in a practice I call “agenticity”: the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents."

"We infer" is a bias. The reality, rather, is that we perceive the inference. I say that because it has been a common universal human experience. Not something that one culture passed to another.

So we weren't talking about the same thing. As I understand your usage of the word, agency also applies to the unconscious laws of nature. And I don't understand how you can say that willed intent exists absent consciousness.

I know you don't, but nevertheless. Organization is an expression of intent. Existence is organized to produce a specific result. It is thus the embodiment of intent. Intent, extant. What role consciousness plays in this is a mystery beyond our own.

In any event, when I am talking about a god, I am talking about a conscious agent with intent, something able to envision a future state and cause it to be.

You are talking, then, not about God, but about how a significant number of humans have chosen to conceptualize God for their own purposes. And that's fine. But I believe I have already sufficiently explained why we humans do this. And it's not because God IS this. It's because we need to feel that we can interact with this great mystery enough to perhaps gain some sort of control in relation to it.

But getting back to my original comment, as one strips away the human qualities from a god concept, one all elements of mind are gone - consciousness, thoughts, memories, desires, preferences, and consciousness, eventually we are no longer talking about what I call a god.

We are exactly talking about God: the great mystery of existence. That's what we are left with when we strip away all the anthropomorphic projections: the greatest of all mysteries. The mystery of being. This is what God is.

These features that we are removing are what distinguishes a god from a multiverse or the laws of physics. It's not helpful to me to conflate all of these as having agency.

Multiverses have nothing to do with it. If they exist, they are just more "nature". They are just more existential mechanisms. The fundamental mystery remains. That is the mystery of the source, sustenance, and purpose of these natural mechanisms. Of that 'ordering' of energy expressed, that results in what is.

What I said is self-evidently true. Unconscious processes can generate order from chaos.

Can it? Nothing can exist in chaos but chaos. So nothing can come from chaos but chaos. It's a logical impossibility. Limitations must be imposed on the chaos for any sort of order to form, and that defies the definition of chaos. So your proposition is logically incoherent. And anyway, there is no chaos, anywhere in existence, that we have ever found. Or any evidence of it ever having existed, anywhere, at any time. Abject chaos cannot logically "exist" as anything but a fantasy in a human mind.

A crystal is a very ordered structure, but is not evidence of intelligence.

It's the physical embodiment of intelligence! Of existential order (and thereby, agency).

Remember, the ID people in search of physical evidence of an intelligent designer, were searching for irreducible and specified complexity, not just complexity. The understood that complexity alone does not require intelligence or intent.

You and they have fallen down the same rabbit hole. That is the rabbit hole of anthropomorphizing the unknowable. Existence itself manifests and contains the physical embodiment of a creative will. Scientists and creationists alike can see this as plain as day. But the creationists want to apply an anthropomorphized "consciousness" to it, and then find the "evidence" to support it. While the scientists are trying specifically not to do that, and seek no evidence of it. They simply want to know how the 'creation' works. "God" is the mystery behind the creative will that is being expressed as existence. But to us ... ALL of us, that remains a great mystery. So much so that presuming it to be "conscious" in any way that we would recognize is exactly that: blind presumption.

Are you familiar with the concept of a dissipative structure, which is an organized, far from equilibrium structure that assembles itself spontaneously under certain circumstances, a topic discussed at length in Prigogine's book Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature?

That such circumstances are necessary proves that it can't and won't happen in abject chaos. Existence is not some accidental, spontaneous result sprung from a field of chaos. It's simply is not logically possible.

From Wiki:

"A dissipative structure is characterized by the spontaneous appearance of symmetry breaking (anisotropy) and the formation of complex, sometimes chaotic, structures where interacting particles exhibit long range correlations. Examples in everyday life include convection, turbulent flow, cyclones, hurricanes and living organisms."

"Particles" don't exist in a field of chaos. Nothing but chaos exists in a field of chaos. In fact, chaos, itself, cannot be said to "exist". When we produce computer programs that generate "randomness" the field of "randomness" is contained by the organization of the computer's mechanisms. And that "randomness" is limited by the 1s and 0s that it's 'made of'. And these provide the limitation/organization against which the supposed field of chaos can produce some order.

Once again, neither order nor complexity require an intelligent agent.

They both require significant intelligence even to recognize! Because they are, in fact, manifestations of intelligence. Again, both the scientist and the creationist can see this.

Sorry, but I can't relate to many of the things you say characterize the human condition, such as this. As I've explained before, the great unknowns don't trouble me at all. I am perfectly content not getting answers to unanswerable questions. This does not cause dread in me. I understand my vulnerability as a flesh and blood organism that can be extinguished at any time and without warning. Still, no angst there.

And blind men are not afraid of the dark because, for them, there is no "dark". My point is that this proves nothing. Humanity is still what it is, regardless, and you are still a human. You're choosing to ignore the question of existence doesn't make the question go away. Your choosing not to fear the unknown may be wise or it may be foolish. That will depend on the unknown, itself. But your choice isn't really any more logical or honest than most other people's: theist, atheists, agnostics, or whatever. Because in the end, the great existential unknown remains, and we remain vulnerable to it.

You refer to how the majority of the people in the world are - most have god beliefs, most live with little control over their lives, most feel vulnerable and are afraid, most need answers to the great mysteries (even if they have to make one up), and the like. I'm aware that this is the case, but still, I don't identify with any of that personally. That's not my life. I do not feel fearful. Being vulnerable is just a fact of life, not a cause of ongoing fear. Not having all the answers is as well.

Maybe that's biological. Maybe that's pathological. Maybe it's insane. Maybe it's wisdom. I don't feel afraid, much, either. But I am acutely aware of how vulnerable I am (having suffered the insanity of addiction). A path I both did and did not choose, that nearly destroyed me. So I am not so cavalier as to presume that what I don't know can't destroy me, and take from me everything I love, and maybe even with my participation!

I'm just saying, "arrogance comes before the fall", as they say. And they say it for good reason.

And I have all the power I can use. I don't require much, just control over the circumstances of my life, which I have.

Good luck with that.

I still don't see an answer to my question here.

I don't know who ISN'T a 'secular humanist'. Certainly nearly every theist I've ever met, is. That bit about "rejecting religious superstition" is just atheistic blather being tossed into the definition out of bias. Most theists are humanists regardless of their "superstitions". And many atheists are humanists in spite of their resentment against superstition. Most humans are humanists. And most humans are "secular" as well. As they live according to logic, reason, and a desire to comply with the circumstances of the world around them.

Incidentally, a god belief isn't a possibility for me anyway. I'd have to return to faith-based thinking, which I consider a mistake, a logical error. I'm a strong believer in not accumulating roads on one's map that aren't out there, that is, wrong ideas, and I know of no better way to accumulate wrong ideas than to shut down critical thinking and just believe, were that even a possibility. So even if you convinced me that there was benefit in a god belief, it still wouldn't be an option for me.

You never left "faith-based thinking". You just haven't understood this, yet. As a human being, your whole life is "faith-based", because you don't have anything else. Reasoned probability still requires that you trust it enough to act on it. And that's what faith is: acting on that trust.

 

[Pudding]

Do you assign human qualities to God? Why?

Is it not presumptuous to assume God thinks? Does God have a brain? Because last I checked, one needs a brain to think.

God wants? Why do you assume God has desire?

God gets angry? Anger is a product of ego. Why do you assume God has an ego?

I could go on all day about statements I've heard where people assign such human qualities to God.

Is it not plausible that God has none of these human qualities? Is it not possible that God just is?

Yes, i also wonder why do people assign human qualities to non-human animals. Why?

Is it not presumptuous to assume lion thinks? Does lion has a brain? No, lion has no brain! Because brain is a human-exclusive qualitiy, therefor it's absurd to say that lion has brain! Because lion has no brain, therefor lion cannot think!

Tiger wants? Why do anyone assume tiger has desire? Desire is a human-exclusive qualitiy, therefor tiger has no desire!

Gorilla gets angry? Anger is a product of ego, ego is a human-exclusive quality therefor Gorilla cannot get angry! Why do anyone assume Gorilla has an ego?

I could go on all day about statements I've heard where people assign such human qualities to non-human animals.

Is it not plausible that non-human animals have none of these human qualities? Is it not possible that non-human animals just is?

/s

 

[SalixIncendium]

Yes, i also wonder why do people assign human qualities to non-human animals. Why?

Is it not presumptuous to assume lion thinks? Does crocodile has a brain? No, crocodile has no brain! Because brain is a human-exclusive qualitiy, therefor it's absurd to say that crocodile has brain!

Tiger wants? Why do anyone assume tiger has desire? Desire is a human-exclusive qualitiy, therefor tiger has no desire!

Monkey gets angry? Anger is a product of ego, ego is a human-exclusive quality therefor monkey cannot get angry! Why do anyone assume monkey has an ego?

I could go on all day about statements I've heard where people assign such human qualities to non-human animals.

Is it not plausible that non-human animals have none of these human qualities? Is it not possible that non-human animals just is?

I see what you did thar!

 

[Bird123]

Of course not. My "taking my brain with me" comment was tongue-in-cheek.



Yes. A very astute observation.

When my younger daughter was born, I would just watch her for hours with how she reacted to the stimulus in her newly found environment, and I was fascinated in seeing her pureness without yet having been conditioned by and attached to it...before learning to be human.



Another useful practice in such an environment is to rather than say, "It's me," is to consider what is not me, say, "not this," and simply be in what remains.



Liken this body to a chariot. The mind is the reins, the intellect is the charioteer, the senses are the horses, and sense objects are the road. I am the passenger.



I'm not sure this is the case. What I'm thinking/feeling is a part of the subtle body. While I'm confident that what lies in the causal body (experience/karma) is taken with me after the death of the body/mind complex (until liberation), I'm not sure all the qualities of the subtle body survive death of the body/mind complex. If that were the case, many more people would recall thoughts and feelings from previous incarnations.

Life is about Learning and Growing. The focus is on the current stage of lessons and not the lessons that it took in the past to get you where you are today.

With so much information from the past, one would find it much easier to wander from the lessons at hand. Is it really a good idea to have total past recall at the need to focus forward? Still, there are a few people who do recall some of their past lives.

When you are free from the physical restrictions of your current physical life, it will all come back to you.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

"we infer agency behind the patterns we observe in a practice I call “agenticity”: the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents."

"We infer" is a bias.

Yes, its a cognitive bias as I have bee explaining for several posts now. It's an irrational instinct or intuition (not a result of reasoning but of natural selection) derived from eons of evolution, and accounts for the widespread god belief.

It's not my bias, by the way, but it might be yours. Remember, I'm the guy that has removed the theistic ghost from the machine and moved on past instinct.

A crystal is a very ordered structure, but is not evidence of intelligence.

Organization is an expression of intent.

I've already rebutted that, you didn't address the rebuttal, and here you are repeating unchanged what was rebutted. We're at an impasse here. I don't intend to repeat my rebuttal. It was in the discussion of crystals and dissipative structures. The oceans and the continents separated and organized themselves. The earth has organized itself into an atmosphere, hydrosphere, and the mineral center, which is itself organized into a crust, mantle and biphasic core. Where's the intent there? In the rocks? In the gravity?

I find that one of the largest barriers to making progress in these discussion is the use of words that are really poorly defined and unclear. I still don't know what you mean by either a god or intent. For me, a god is a conscious agent capable of creating a universe (also the creatures in pantheons that didn't create universes, like Apollo, but I generally am not referring to such entities when I am speaking about gods). Intent is the state of a conscious agent having a desire, imagining an outcome, and attempting to make it reality. These clear and succinct ideas make proceeding effortless. There is never any vagueness about what a god is It isn't the unconscious laws of physics as some poets like to say, including Einstein, if I understand his use of the word. It isn't an essence or the name for the unknown or any other poetic interpretation of the word. If something isn't conscious, I don't use the word intent. Or the word god.

You are talking, then, not about God, but about how a significant number of humans have chosen to conceptualize God for their own purposes.

Don't forget that I have no god belief. For me, there is nothing there but other people's beliefs. You might be offended again by this, but to me, your comment is equivalent to "You're not talking about the real Santa, just some people's idea of what Santa is like." What else is there?

We are exactly talking about God: the great mystery of existence. That's what we are left with when we strip away all the anthropomorphic projections: the greatest of all mysteries. The mystery of being. This is what God is.

Well, as I've explained, I don't call that God. I call that the mystery of being. If a god is involved, fine, but maybe not. The mystery is a mystery whether gods are involved or not.

Nothing can exist in chaos but chaos. So nothing can come from chaos but chaos. It's a logical impossibility.

The claim was that unconscious natural processes can organize matter, and that mere organization or complexity does not guarantee an intelligent agent behind it. Did you want to affirm or contradict that? Once again, we've hit this impasse that occurs when a rebuttal is ignored and the claim rebutted repeated unchanged. There is no going forward from there. All I can do is repeat the rebuttal, but why bother if it was ignored the first time?

I'm sure that you read that rebuttal, and probably understood it. Why is there no evidence of that here?

You and they have fallen down the same rabbit hole. That is the rabbit hole of anthropomorphizing the unknowable.

It's you, not me, calling mysteries God. I call them mysteries. I have not anthropomorphized them.

Existence itself manifests and contains the physical embodiment of a creative will. Scientists and creationists alike can see this as plain as day.

That's a faith-based belief. I see no evidence of will above the level of a conscious organism on earth. Beavers make dams intentionally, but galaxies form and evolve without intent.

chaos, itself, cannot be said to "exist"

Pick another word or phrase if you like for high entropy states. Sometimes, nature takes matter that can only be specified with countless parameters, such as the relative position and direction of movement of the countless sodium and chloride ions in a measure of saltwater, and converts it to something regular and ordered that can be specified with very few parameters such as a salt crystal, the organization of which which can be specified by the location and orientation of just one sodium molecule and one chloride molecule, the rest being determined by that alone. That's what's meant by chaos and order here.

You're choosing to ignore the question of existence doesn't make the question go away.

And you calling it God answers nothing, either, but that's what we expect with unanswerable questions, isn't it? After a while, it's time to quit searching and recognize that a question will remained unresolved. That's hardly ignoring it.

I'm reminded of people who spend their entire lives searching for spiritual truth as they call it, although I don't know exactly what they're missing or what need they're trying to fulfill. I had an exploratory phase in my twenties (Christianity) and thirties (reading about world views from history, philosophy, and other cultures). I eventually decided what I could use from all of that, and what was not helpful, came to my current secular humanist world view (godless metaphysics, a faith-free epistemology embracing skepticism, reason, empiricism, and rational ethics predicated on empathy).

It's been a satisfying and productive world view, so I'm not looking to trade it in. It's my mental map for negotiating life, and has served me well for decades, so I really don't understand this persistent focusing on these ideas for a lifetime. You seem to spend time wondering about the unanswerable. I've accepted it as unanswerable and am comfortable with that.

I think a lot of people look down on that: "What do you mean you've quit searching for eternal truths?" "Yeah, well I also eventually quit looking for those missing keys as well. I don't see looking for them indefinitely as a virtue."

Your choosing not to fear the unknown may be wise or it may be foolish. That will depend on the unknown, itself. But your choice isn't really any more logical or honest than most other people's: theist, atheists, agnostics, or whatever. Because in the end, the great existential unknown remains, and we remain vulnerable to it.

It's not a choice to be unafraid. It's a psychological state determined by biology and experience. So logic doesn't enter into it. But it is certainly more comfortable to not be in fear. As I've explained, I'm fully aware that there are countless unforeseeable circumstances that could lead to harm or death, and I have taken precautions where those threats are apparent and can be mitigated, but that's not fear.

You never left "faith-based thinking". You just haven't understood this, yet. As a human being, your whole life is "faith-based", because you don't have anything else. Reasoned probability still requires that you trust it enough to act on it. And that's what faith is: acting on that trust.

Actually, I have abandoned faith-based thinking, but first, let me be clear what I mean when I use the word faith.

The word is used by others for two very different kinds of beliefs, justified and unjustified. Personally, I don't use the word faith for justified belief, as in "I have faith that the car will turn over the next time I try to start it as it has the last 500+ times." That's a belief justified by evidence (prior experience) and is radically different from a god belief, for example. I don't like to use the same word to mean both of those things, so I reserve it for unjustified belief.

But if that's what you mean by faith - thinking that the car is likely start when I turn the key - then you are saying something trivial. Basing future actions on past events is not faith as long as one is talking tentatively, and not believing more than can be known with the available evidence. Believing that the car definitely will start is faith-based and contradicted by the evidence that occasionally the battery is dead and won't start. But saying that it probably will start is simply a fact, and not based in unjustified belief. No faith involved.

So yes, one can learn to exclude faith-based thought from his way of deciding what's true about the world. It begins in school, if critical thinking is taught. The Sunday school teacher is happy to indoctrinate children into creationism using repetition and persuasion rather than evidence and valid argument, but your evolution teacher will lay out the evidence for the theory and explain how Darwin and others since got from the evidence to sound conclusions via valid (fallacy free) reasoning. After years of such education, one learns to this automatically, and to avoid simply accepting the opinions of others as fact without support.

Moreover, one then goes back and reconsiders all of ones beliefs and why he believes them, many being accumulated before learning critical thinking, and thus accepted on faith. If the belief doesn't meet the standard of a justified belief it is culled from one's fund of knowledge. "Grandpa was a war hero, Mom said so," once believed by faith and possibly wrong, becomes "Mom said grandpa was a war hero." Eventually, one has no unjustified beliefs and accumulates no more.

 

[PureX]

Yes, its a cognitive bias as I have bee explaining for several posts now. It's an irrational instinct or intuition (not a result of reasoning but of natural selection) derived from eons of evolution, and accounts for the widespread god belief.

It's exactly reasonable. Because it's logical to draw the inference of purpose from a set of controlling parameters that result in an incredibly complex and specific outcome. It's WHY we evolved as we did.

The earth has organized itself into an atmosphere, hydrosphere, and the mineral center, which is itself organized into a crust, mantle and biphasic core. Where's the intent there? In the rocks? In the gravity?

The intent is in those immutable laws that are governing the way energy can and cannot express itself, resulting in existence as we experience it (and beyond what we can experience of it).

I find that one of the largest barriers to making progress in these discussion is the use of words that are really poorly defined and unclear. I still don't know what you mean by either a god or intent. For me, a god is a conscious agent capable of creating a universe (also the creatures in pantheons that didn't create universes, like Apollo, but I generally am not referring to such entities when I am speaking about gods).

That is your bias: based on your rejection and resentment of that kind of anthropomorphic god-characterization. All "God" is, to me, is a word referring to the great mystery of existence: to that which embodies the source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is. I'm not hung up on a presumption of consciousness or intent as we humans understand these phenomena. And I don't know how else they might be manifested beyond it. (That's why it remains a mystery.)

Intent is the state of a conscious agent having a desire, imagining an outcome, and attempting to make it reality.

I don't think so. Intent is the motive of organization. Consciousness is not a requirement. A living cell has an intent, and it carries out that intent without being conscious of it.

Don't forget that I have no god belief.

Neither do I. That's irrelevant.

For me, there is nothing there but other people's beliefs.

But that IS a 'belief'. And it IS about God. So it IS a "god-belief".

You might be offended again by this, but to me, your comment is equivalent to "You're not talking about the real Santa, just some people's idea of what Santa is like." What else is there?

The mystery of mysteries. As it has always been.

Well, as I've explained, I don't call that God. I call that the mystery of being. If a god is involved, fine, but maybe not. The mystery is a mystery whether gods are involved or not.

I agree. But "God" is the term most people use to refer to that mystery of being. So why all the fuss? If most people called it "Percival", so what? One label is as good as any other.

The claim was that unconscious natural processes can organize matter, and that mere organization of complexity does not guarantee an intelligent agent behind it.

You mean a "conscious" intelligence. Intelligence is clearly evident by the fact that it takes great intelligence just to comprehend that complex organization all around us. So intelligence is not the question. The question is the source, sustenance, and purpose of all this expressed intelligence (complexity)?

That's a faith-based belief. I see no evidence of will above the level of a conscious organism on earth. Beaver make dams intentionally, but galaxies form and evolve without intent.

The controls that created the beaver also created the galaxy the beaver lives in. Those same control create us, and our own conscious intentions. And it all appears to be quite intended, because it has been controlled into existence every step of the way, and in great detail. This is not a faith issue. It's just logical observation.

You really make this too difficult for yourself. Pick another word or phrase if you like for high entropy states. Sometimes, nature takes matter that can only be specified with countless parameters, such as the relative position and direction of movement of the countless sodium and chloride ions in a measure of saltwater, and converts it to something regular and ordered that can be specified with very few parameters such as a salt crystal, the organization of which which can be specified by the location and orientation of just one sodium molecule and one chloride molecule, the rest being determined by that alone. That's what's meant by chaos and order here.

But it's a false claim. What really happened was order resulting from order. Not order resulting from chaos.

And you're calling it God answers nothing, either, but that's what we expect with unanswerable questions, isn't it? After a while, it's time to quit searching and recognize that a question will remained unresolved. That's hardly ignoring it.

Ignoring it certainly seems to be what you're implying, here. Even more than ignoring it; you're imagining the question is invalid because existence blindly and accidentally created itself, for no reason and with no purpose. Aren't you?

I'm reminded of people who spend their entire lives searching for spiritual truth as they call it, although I don't know exactly what they're missing or what need they're trying to fulfill. I had an exploratory phase in my twenties (Christianity) and thirties (reading about world views from history and other cultures), but I eventually decided what I could use from all of that and what was not helpful, came t my current secular humanist world view (godless metaphysics, rational faith-fee epistemology, rational ethics predicated on empathy).

Different people need different things, and have different skills, and interests. We are a cooperative species so all these differences are good for us. They allow us, collectively, to do and explore far more than any one of us could, individually, in a lifetime. The way you have chosen to respond to the 'great mystery of being' is just your way. It's not the only logical, reasonable way, and it's not the "best" way. It has some advantages, and it has some shortcomings. As will any way we might choose.

So yes, one can learn to exclude faith-based thought from his way of deciding what's true about the world.

Even is one could (and we can't) doing that would, itself, be an act of faith.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I think we've reached the end of the line with this discussion. No progress is being made. You still won't rebut arguments made to you.

it's logical to draw the inference of purpose from a set of controlling parameters that result in an incredibly complex and specific outcome.

Disagree. It's logical to suspect intelligence, but not to assume an intelligent designer was necessary. There are naturalistic theories and hypotheses for all of reality that are logically possible. It is an act of faith and conclude, "The living cell is too complex to have arisen naturalistically." It's a special pleading fallacy - "Complicated things need an intelligent designer. A living cell couldn't possibly have come to exist without an intelligent designer." "What about that intelligent designer? It's likely more complex than a cell. Isn't it an error to posit an even more complicated entity to explain a less complicated thing because you think the less complicated thing was too complicated to exist without an intelligent designer? What made something as complicated as a deity?" "That's different. The rules don't apply to God (insert nebulous reason that does not answer the question here, such as "God has always existed" or "God is outside of time")."

That's special pleading.

The intent is in those immutable laws that are governing the way energy can and cannot express itself, resulting in existence as we experience it (and beyond what we can experience of it).

I already told you that I don't use the word intent to describe the actions of unconscious entities. We are at impasse here as well.

All "God" is, to me, is a word referring to the great mystery of existence. Intent is the motive of organization. Consciousness is not a requirement. A living cell has an intent, and it carries out that intent without being conscious of it.

Then why do you use that word? It carries baggage well beyond what the great mysteries connote. Look at the problems Einstein caused by using the word to mean the laws of nature. Look at all the time wasted here for me to finally discover that by God you mean unanswered questions. I can't tell if you actually believe anything different from me. We both agree that there are mysteries, but you call them God. We agree that the universe evolves in a directed way, but you call that intent.

"God" is the term most people use to refer to that mystery of being. So why all the fuss?

No, God is the term most people use to mean an agent that transcends the universe, and by agent, I mean aware. They talk to it and think it hears them. That's what most people in the world believe

What really happened was order resulting from order.

And here we are again stuck in a loop over definitions. What really happened was that a high entropy state was passively converted to a lower entropy state.

Even more than ignoring it; you're imagining the question is invalid because existence blindly and accidentally created itself, for no reason and with no purpose. Aren't you?

Nope, not invalid, just unanswered and likely unanswerable. And the naturalistic approach is also mysterious. I just don't use the word god in conjunction with that mystery, as I've already explained to you in vain.

Even is one could (and we can't) doing that would, itself, be an act of faith.

I already rebutted this, with a clear definition of what I meant by faith, and how I removed it from my way of thinking, which rebuttal you ignored, only to say essentially, "You have faith anyway." My answer remains unchanged.

I propose that we end this discussion here, or if you like, take the last word yourself. There is no progress possible under these conditions - vague definitions and ignoring rebuttals and repeating yourself guarantee that - and no point in continuing in these circles. I have nothing more to add to all of my unrefuted arguments, arguments you don't acknowledge As I said before, I assume you read and understand them, but there is no evidence of that in your responses, and I can't see a reason to continue.