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Poll: The best argument against God, capital G.

What is the best argument against God?


  • Total voters
    60

Ostronomos

Well-Known Member
Noam Chomsky has explicitly rejected the theory of intelligent design, and I doubt that he has ever endorsed the idea that grammars are irreducibly complex. Indeed, his grammatical theories are devoted to reducing the perceived complexity of syntactic systems to the simpler components that interact to give rise to grammatical complexity. However, if you truly believe that he meant to endorse irreducible complexity, can you supply a reference to substantiate the claim?
If Noam Chomsky persisted in his ignorance of God rather than a mere passing ignorance, then it would demonstrate the ignorance of his times or at the very least his lack of intelligence. Rather than an actual conclusive evidence indicating the actual state of affairs.

As I have said before, two of the smartest people in the world have unequivocally proven God. And that is mainly because we do not live in ignorant times.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
If Noam Chomsky persisted in his ignorance of God rather than a mere passing ignorance, then it would demonstrate the ignorance of his times or at the very least his lack of intelligence. Rather than an actual conclusive evidence indicating the actual state of affairs.

As I have said before, two of the smartest people in the world have unequivocally proven God. And that is mainly because we do not live in ignorant times.
Chomsky is not just a colloquial agnostic but like Dennett and I a philosophical Agnostic. I assume he could unequivocally prove that gods aren't known.
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
My favorite argument in favor of rejecting belief in God (and gods) runs informally as follows:
  1. Human beings are evolved from other animals with brains and peripheral nervous systems.
  2. Brain activity causes all mental activity in humans and other animals.
  3. When brain activity ceases, all mental function disappears (i.e. memories, sensations, volition, emotions, thoughts).
  4. Therefore, disembodied spirits (entities with mental functions) without physical bodies are implausible, especially human spirits.
  5. Avoidance of death is a prime directive for all living organisms, and that gives rise to fear of death in humans.
  6. There is reason to believe humans invented gods to help assuage the fear of death with the idea that disembodied souls can be immortal.
  7. Therefore, belief in the existence of God (and gods) is unjustified and implausible.

  • Human beings are evolved from other animals with brains and peripheral nervous systems.
It is the glory of the human cerebral cortex that it -----unique among all animals and unprecedented in all geological time ---has the power to defy the dictates of the selfish genes. We can enjoy sex without procreation. We can devote our lives to philosophy, mathematics, poetry, astrophysics, music, geology, or the warmth of human love, in defiance of the old [reptile] brain's genetic urging that these are a waste of time ---time that "should" be spent fighting rivals and pursuing multiple sexual partners: "As I see it, we have a profound choice to make. It is a choice between favoring the old brain or favoring the new brain. More specifically, do we want our future to be driven by the processes that got us here, namely, natural selection, competition, and the drive of the selfish genes? Or, do we want our future to be driven by intelligence and its desire to understand the world?"​
Richard Dawkins, introducing Jeff Hawkins, One Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence (bracket mine, based on earlier comment in intro. Last quotation is Dawkins quoting Hawkins).

In the book quoted above, Jeff Hawkins attempts to answer the question left dangling in the statement above: if the old brain is just a gene's way of making more genes, what's the impetus and who's giving the marching orders for the new brain that doesn't serve the gene any longer? Who's the new brain (that can ignore sex altogether---say Catholic celibacy), serving, and to what end?
  • Brain activity causes all mental activity in humans and other animals.
That's a theory subject to the scientific-method but not proved by it. There's many thoughtful agnostics today who're beginning to believe mental activity is an impetus for brain activity. Quantum computers function so much faster than traditional supercomputers precisely by functioning in a manner that isn't dependent on classical physics.
  • When brain activity ceases, all mental function disappears (i.e. memories, sensations, volition, emotions, thoughts).
This statement is is a subset of the belief that all mental function is a product of brain activity such that based on that premise the cessation of brain activity guarantees the cessation of mental function. If, on the other hand, the cessation of brain activity is merely the cessation of brain activity, then the mental function that once manifest in the brain activity may disappear for the sake of brain activity, but reappear in another dimension of reality that transcends the material brain and the material world served up by that brain. The qualia that makes up the animal world in the animal brain is not the quintessence of reality. The new brain, though it's still attached by the umbilical cord to the old brain, knows of a reality, new qualities and qualia, that the animal brain can't see nor comprehend. When the umbilical cord to the old brain is severed, rebirth has occurred. Are you not yet born-again? Are you still under the spell of the serpent and the knowledge gained through the animal brain? . . . There's a slow train to the new world coming round the bend. Do you have a ticket?




John
 
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Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
. . . How have you prepared for the possibility that John 3:36 is the gospel truth?



John

By accepting the truth of my life. If "God" is the ultimate judge then God will judge my life such as it is. Whatever that judgement is I'll accept because I can't pretend to be other than what I am. If that is not acceptable to God then there is nothing I could have done about it other than be my self.

Ultimately I am what God created me to be, so if I don't live up to God's expectation, the blame lies not with me.
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
By accepting the truth of my life. If "God" is the ultimate judge then God will judge my life such as it is. Whatever that judgement is I'll accept because I can't pretend to be other than what I am. If that is not acceptable to God then there is nothing I could have done about it other than be my self.

Ultimately I am what God created me to be, so if I don't live up to God's expectation, the blame lies not with me.

. . . The last statement is attributed to Lucifer when he's cast out of heaven. He claims that if he's evil, or has sinned, then God is guilty since God made him and thus must take ownership of what he's wrought in making him. In the teaching of the late great R.B. Thieme, Jr., human history is the appeal trial God grants Lucifer in order to show him how creature freewill negates God's responsibility in the evil that comes into the world through creature volition.

Not only does God become a creature, under Lucifer's dominion, but he dies of a breach of justice signed off on by Lucifer. In this remarkable story, the greatest ever told, God, through Christ Jesus, both answers Lucifer's appeal, but also willingly suffers the punishment designed for sinners so that all who sin might become the righteousness of God through faith in him.

In answer to your statement above, the Gospel implies that human history calls out witnesses, like this message for instance, serving the prosecution, so that no one will stand at the judgment seat of God, innocent, and thus able to fall back on the very argument which human history, and the existence of every human soul, witnesses against. If one soul, born into the slavery of sin, repents and accepts Christ's freewill gift, Lucifer's appeal, and all who line up behind it, will fail and be judged righteously at the great white throne.



John
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
. . . The last statement is attributed to Lucifer when he's cast out of heaven. He claims that if he's evil, or has sinned, then God is guilty since God made him and thus must take ownership of what he's wrought in making him. In the teaching of the late great R.B. Thieme, Jr., human history is the appeal trial God grants Lucifer in order to show him how creature freewill negates God's responsibility in the evil that comes into the world through creature volition.

Not only does God become a creature, under Lucifer's dominion, but he dies of a breach of justice signed off on by Lucifer. In this remarkable story, the greatest ever told, God, through Christ Jesus, both answers Lucifer's appeal, but also willingly suffers the punishment designed for sinners so that all who sin might become the righteousness of God through faith in him.

In answer to your statement above, the Gospel implies that human history calls out witnesses, like this message for instance, serving the prosecution, so that no one will stand at the judgment seat of God, innocent, and thus able to fall back on the very argument which human history, and the existence of every human soul, witnesses against. If one soul, born into the slavery of sin, repents and accepts Christ's freewill gift, Lucifer's appeal, and all who line up behind it, will fail and be judged righteously at the great white throne.



John

Regardless I can't be other than I am. I go through life do the best I can which include believing what seems right to me to believe. If that is not good enough then it is not. I will stand by my decisions with no regret.
 

Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
  • Human beings are evolved from other animals with brains and peripheral nervous systems.
It is the glory of the human cerebral cortex that it -----unique among all animals and unprecedented in all geological time ---has the power to defy the dictates of the selfish genes. We can enjoy sex without procreation. We can devote our lives to philosophy, mathematics, poetry, astrophysics, music, geology, or the warmth of human love, in defiance of the old [reptile] brain's genetic urging that these are a waste of time ---time that "should" be spent fighting rivals and pursuing multiple sexual partners: "As I see it, we have a profound choice to make. It is a choice between favoring the old brain or favoring the new brain. More specifically, do we want our future to be driven by the processes that got us here, namely, natural selection, competition, and the drive of the selfish genes? Or, do we want our future to be driven by intelligence and its desire to understand the world?"​
Richard Dawkins, introducing Jeff Hawkins, One Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence (bracket mine, based on earlier comment in intro. Last quotation is Dawkins quoting Hawkins).

In the book quoted above, Jeff Hawkins attempts to answer the question left dangling in the statement above: if the old brain is just a gene's way of making more genes, what's the impetus and who's giving the marching orders for the new brain that doesn't serve the gene any longer? Who's the new brain (that can ignore sex altogether---say Catholic celibacy), serving, and to what end?

Catholic clergy definitely don't ignore sex, but that's off-topic. I get what you are trying to say. :) Dawkins himself didn't leave the question dangling. He answered it with his well-known concept of the "meme", which is something like an idea that competes and behaves as selfishly as genes do. And we would do well to remember that "selfishness" is only a metaphor here. Hawkins' question actually contains a presupposition that there is something other than the machinery of the brain itself that gives it marching orders. As long as we are speaking metaphorically, I suppose it's reasonable to say that the brain figures out its own marching orders.

  • Brain activity causes all mental activity in humans and other animals.
That's a theory subject to the scientific-method but not proved by it. There's many thoughtful agnostics today who're beginning to believe mental activity is an impetus for brain activity. Quantum computers function so much faster than traditional supercomputers precisely by functioning in a manner that isn't dependent on classical physics.

What does science ever really prove? It is just a methodology for arriving at the best solution among competing scientific memes, and religious memes are definitely in competition with scientific ones. My point in mentioning science was that the claim is testable and has been experimentally verified in every case where it has been tested, AFAIK. There are no mental functions that take place independently of brain activity, and there are many ways to test the claim, not just by examining blood flow patterns in living brains. Quantum mechanics is a red herring here. Speed of processing is not a relevant issue.


  • When brain activity ceases, all mental function disappears (i.e. memories, sensations, volition, emotions, thoughts).
This statement is is a subset of the belief that all mental function is a product of brain activity such that based on that premise the cessation of brain activity guarantees the cessation of mental function. If, on the other hand, the cessation of brain activity is merely the cessation of brain activity, then the mental function that once manifest in the brain activity may disappear for the sake of brain activity, but reappear in another dimension of reality that transcends the material brain and the material world served up by that brain.

I'm not ruling out the logical possibility that the activities of physical brains could possibly be transferred to some other physical or spiritual medium before death destroys the brain, but I'm not ruling out a lot of things that don't actually happen, especially when there is no reason to believe that they do. My argument is a plausibility argument, not an absolute proof in a logical or mathematical sense.


The qualia that makes up the animal world in the animal brain is not the quintessence of reality. The new brain, though it's still attached by the umbilical cord to the old brain, knows of a reality, new qualities and qualia, that the animal brain can't see nor comprehend. When the umbilical cord to the old brain is severed, rebirth has occurred. Are you not yet born-again? Are you still under the spell of the serpent and the knowledge gained through the animal brain? . . . There's a slow train to the new world coming round the bend. Do you have a ticket?


John

Love the music, but you lost me at this point. I don't know why you attach such significance to umbilical cords. Qualia make for interesting philosophical discussions, but I don't see a coherent point that you are making by bringing them up. Do you think that they have nothing to do with physical brain activity?
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Regardless I can't be other than I am. I go through life do the best I can which include believing what seems right to me to believe. If that is not good enough then it is not. I will stand by my decisions with no regret.

This statement is extremely important theologically speaking since it tends to confirm that those who aren't redeemed in the sense of belief in God or Christ can't be. The reason this is important is that if a decision made in time, and a short time-frame at that, like less than one hundred years, could determine a person's everlasting status (heaven or hell) then we have a pretty serious logical problem. E.g., a person being confined to the lake of fire forever for a decision made in a finite time-frame.

Your statement can be read to imply that you are what you are and that's just what it is. Theologically speaking this is called "predestination." It means that what God, who is outside of time, is able to determine absolutely ----i.e., a person's status in relationship to him ----can be used to "predestine" a living soul to a particular status within a tiny window of time, without the smallness of the time-frame bringing up questions like, maybe he just needed more time, or more stimuli, more proof, and he would have been redeemable.

The theological concepts of election and predestination justify your statement: you are precisely, absolutely, what you are, and no argumentation, proof-presentation, no matter how powerful, how proven, no matter how often you're exposed to it, is gonna make any difference. The prism for your powers of observation, evaluation, are, you, what you are, and you, that is to say what you are, is not really based on observations and evaluations since those are secondary to the prism which is you.

Our logic, and power of observation, are at our mercy. By cutting off the seminal organ of my own powers of observation I was begging mercy from a God who I supposed to be more likely to present truth from an Archimedean Point outside of biological or phenomenological bias than anything I could hope to achieve by myself.

It's not easy putting a sharp blade to one's most favored organs. But father Abraham showed the way. Jesus seconded that emotion.




John
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Our logic, and power of observation, are at our mercy. By cutting off the seminal organ of my own powers of observation I was begging mercy from a God who I supposed to be more likely to present truth from an Archimedean Point outside of biological or phenomenological bias than anything I could hope to achieve by myself.

It's not easy putting a sharp blade to one's most favored organs. But father Abraham showed the way. Jesus seconded that emotion.




John

I went that way and now I'm here.
I've been down that road and this is where it led me.
 

Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
That is philosophy and has the following hidden assumptions.
The universe is natural/physical, real, orderly and knowable. None of these are with evidence, but are the basis for evidence. And have never been proven as true and hence are termed methodological naturalism in that the method to to use those assumptions.

I wasn't attempting to hide any assumptions, and I'm certainly happy with the one that the universe is natural/physical, real, orderly, and knowable. I think that most people buy such an assumption, even if they realize that they aren't going to know everything about the universe. I'm not sure what you were trying to say about methodological naturalism, buy I would admit to also being a philosophical naturalist. No argument is without assumptions.


The fear of dying is sometimes the same intensity for the fear of not being rational and in contact with reality as varied among individuals.
Further for rational and reality is sometimes also connected with the belief in effect as to some variance for objective reason, logic and evidence/truth as the only method to claim something real.

I'm having trouble following your logic, probably because you aren't a native speaker of English and possibly even relying on a translation program to construct the text. Bear in mind that my argument is a plausibility argument, not an attempt at a purely logical or mathematical proof. I don't believe in God because I consider such a being highly implausible, not necessarily impossible. And people do often come up with descriptions that seem to attribute impossible properties to God (e.g. omniscience and omnipotence).


In effect the belief set is sometimes no different than objective moral authority in religion and is for psychology/sociology in effect no different in that it is an internalized cultural worldview that is not doubted and made subject to critical thinking and skepticism.

It is in general sense a variant of skeptic, where it is assumed that all claims are to be doubted for their evidence, but the basis for evidence is not doubted.

In effect it rest on a set of cognitive abstract concepts with no objective referents, but they are treated as concrete concepts as linked to the assumed external sensory experiences and treated as real. But real itself is one of those words, which has no objective referent.

Any claim can be called into doubt and no argument is without some assumptions that can be questioned. However, you aren't really saying much more than that here. If you disagree with something in my argument, I would prefer that you address it directly.


Note. I am myself assuming that the universe is real, orderly and knowable, but I don't treat it as neither natural nor supernatural.

If you assume that the universe is real, orderly (in a chaotic sense, of course), and knowable, then the best policy IMHO would be to treat it as such.
 

Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
If Noam Chomsky persisted in his ignorance of God rather than a mere passing ignorance, then it would demonstrate the ignorance of his times or at the very least his lack of intelligence. Rather than an actual conclusive evidence indicating the actual state of affairs.

I don't think that Chomsky's beliefs about God are really relevant here. He is a very smart man, but so are a lot of theists and atheists. I think that his words may have been taken out of context by John Brey's source, but John didn't actually name a source for his Chomsky comment.

As I have said before, two of the smartest people in the world have unequivocally proven God. And that is mainly because we do not live in ignorant times.

I can't recall your past comment about unequivocal proofs of God, so I can't comment on it.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I wasn't attempting to hide any assumptions, and I'm certainly happy with the one that the universe is natural/physical, real, orderly, and knowable. I think that most people buy such an assumption, even if they realize that they aren't going to know everything about the universe. I'm not sure what you were trying to say about methodological naturalism, buy I would admit to also being a philosophical naturalist. No argument is without assumptions.
...

What is philosophical naturalism to you?
 

Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
What is philosophical naturalism to you?

Basically, I was using it as equivalent to materialism or physicalism. I reject Cartesian or substance dualism. There is no evidence for a spiritual plane of existence, but there is plenty of evidence for a physical one.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Basically, I was using it as equivalent to materialism or physicalism. I reject Cartesian or substance dualism. There is no evidence for a spiritual plane of existence, but there is plenty of evidence for a physical one.

Well, evidence is not proof. But let us leave it there.
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Catholic clergy definitely don't ignore sex, but that's off-topic.

Abraham didn't really cut off his male organ. But the symbolism implies, as does priestly celibacy, an underlying understanding that that's what's required to be born of spirit rather than the spit of the serpent. Kierkegaard points out Jesus' parable about knowing the price for erecting something before you start the project. By putting his blade near that erection, and by locking a chastity belt around that area, Abraham and the Roman priesthood proclaim loud and clear that they know the price of being reborn of a non-phallic conception.

Dawkins himself didn't leave the question dangling. He answered it with his well-known concept of the "meme", which is something like an idea that competes and behaves as selfishly as genes do. And we would do well to remember that "selfishness" is only a metaphor here. Hawkins' question actually contains a presupposition that there is something other than the machinery of the brain itself that gives it marching orders. As long as we are speaking metaphorically, I suppose it's reasonable to say that the brain figures out its own marching orders.

To his credit, Dawkins gets a lot right about the mind's gene (the meme). But he can't really get his head around the truth of the mind/body, the meme/gene, problem.

We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.​
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. 200-201.​

This is so Luciferian. We can turn against our creator. We alone on earth can rebel against our creator. The animals still bound in the reptile brain, without the new brain, are slaves to the creator. We, on the other hand, share something of his freedom from the laws of physics (bound in the rote mechanics of the biological brain): we alone can use this divine gift not to serve, like the dumb beasts (animals, Jews, Christians) the creator in a new and profound way. No, we can rebel against him. What's he gonna do now that he's shared his eternal nature with us? Lock us up forever? He wouldn't dare. He'd have to be there too since we have his nature and he's One. Surely you don't believe in a suffering God who would suffer the rebels at the cost of his own crucifixion?

What does science ever really prove? It is just a methodology for arriving at the best solution among competing scientific memes, and religious memes are definitely in competition with scientific ones. My point in mentioning science was that the claim is testable and has been experimentally verified in every case where it has been tested, AFAIK. There are no mental functions that take place independently of brain activity, and there are many ways to test the claim, not just by examining blood flow patterns in living brains.

Science proves it has no humility since it's only of late been forced to acknowledge that it can't prove a thing but only make educated guess all of which will eventually be found out to be wrong when new ideas and context shred the former facts and realities. Science is doubly arrogant since theology has known, and stated, that truism, from the beginning. We walk by "faith" not scientific empiricism. "Faith" being the ability to accept non-empirical hypotheses that haven't yet been proven, in order to therein use the human ability to make propitious guesses that magically lead to science fruitfulness.

[A critical [scientific] attitude needs for its raw material, as it were, theories or beliefs which are held more or less dogmatically. Thus, science must start with myths, and with the criticism of myths . . ..​

Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations p. 50.​

Faith provides the very dogmatism, the perception of a revelation (that's yet to be believed or tested), that's the first requirement for the scientific-method. The armchair scientist believes in induction, i.e., the idea that seeing something leads natrually to hypothesizing about it. Popper is clear that never happens even though it seems like it does. No observation ever requires a theory. That's why melanoderms are still cracking coconuts in the jungle while Judeo/Christians are sending selfies back from Mars. Nothing makes a man hypothesize except faith in the human ability to perceive things that aren't yet seen. The aborigine can't perceive the first thing about space travel and that's the end of it. We, on the other hand, walk by faith not by sight says St. Paul. Jewish/Christians memes are the foundation, the dogmatic foundation, for Western culture and science. The Abrahamic myth is the undergirding of the I-phone, space travel, AI:
We owe to Kant the first great attempt to combine a realistic interpretation of natural science with the insight that our scientific theories are not simply the result of a description of nature----of `reading the book of nature' without `prejudice'----but that they are, rather, the products of the human mind: `Our intellect does not draw its laws from nature, but it imposes its laws upon nature.​
Karl Popper, Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics, p. 3.​
How does quantum mechanics today differ from what Bishop George Berkeley told us two centuries ago, `Esse est percipi', to be is to be perceived.​
John Archibald Wheeler.​
I'm not ruling out the logical possibility that the activities of physical brains could possibly be transferred to some other physical or spiritual medium before death destroys the brain, but I'm not ruling out a lot of things that don't actually happen, especially when there is no reason to believe that they do. My argument is a plausibility argument, not an absolute proof in a logical or mathematical sense

I quoted Karl Popper and John Wheeler just a second ago. The activities of their brains are registered in the words, which entered my brain, and conceived the memes in my brain that are a Duke's mixing of the brain-ideas of Popper and Wheeler and the brain-ideas already in my brain. The three of them (the disembodies ideas of Popper, Wheeler, and my mind) were involved in a tryst of sorts that conceived and birthed this current writing which, the writing, is me using what the pen-is, like what the penis is, which is to say in order to shoot the offspring of me Popper and Wheeler out into the memesphere to impregnate unsuspecting and unprepared readers. To reproduce Popper and Wheeler's ideas, my mind merely assumed the bottom of the missionary position so that my ideas could be made pregnant by theirs, and deliver up the ideas you're now reading.

If you're you're still reading this (knowing now the mess you've got yourself into), I don't know how you could believe the memes, ideas, thoughts, of a brain come without their own kind of reproductive apparatus, one that doesn't give a damn about a gene, or flesh, since memes undoubtedly have their own way of getting spread by what the pen-is when it spits its ink onto the virgin page in order to get it into the willing mind whose eyes are spread, or open, wide enough. They say the body is just the genes way of making more genes. I say the genes, and the body, are just the arses memes use to get around and to reproduce.
Qualia make for interesting philosophical discussions, but I don't see a coherent point that you are making by bringing them up. Do you think that they have nothing to do with physical brain activity?

Earlier in the thread I quoted Bishop Berkeley implying anyone who doesn't perceive God is "stupid." His argument was partly based on the fact that there are no qualities, or qualia, in the universe. The perception of color, or taste, or sound, don't exist anywhere in the universe. Worse, there is no law written that says such and such wavelengths of light should be experienced as the quality yellow. The same physical qualities that cause the qualia yellow could cause the taste of chocolate, or even a sexual orgasm. As Professor Norman O. Brown stated the case, the schizophrenic's problem isn't a case of unreality confusing the poor soul, it's too much of reality for one person to endure. The lawful functioning of the non-schizophrenic mind tricks the bankrupt soul into believing the qualia he's experience in a lawful and universal manner is far more real than it is: he's living in a fools paradise that will transform into a schizophrenic living hell when what the schizophrenic, Bishop Berkeley, and me for that matter, already know, forces itself upon the poverty of their soul.



John
 
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Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
Abraham didn't really cut off his male organ. But the symbolism implies, as does priestly celibacy, an underlying understanding that that's what's required to be born of spirit rather than the spit of the serpent. Kierkegaard points out Jesus' parable about knowing the price for erecting something before you start the project. By putting his blade near that erection, and by locking a chastity belt around that area, Abraham and the Roman priesthood proclaim loud and clear that they know the price of being reborn of a non-phallic conception.

If the above passage was meant to convince me that Catholic clergy are not obsessed with sex, I can assure you that a theological discussion of sexual organs is not taking us in the right direction. However, as I said earlier, this is off-topic.


To his credit, Dawkins gets a lot right about the mind's gene (the meme). But he can't really get his head around the truth of the mind/body, the meme/gene, problem.

I don't think he was trying to. He was merely using his previous work on genes as a metaphor to describe how ideas spread among human beings.

We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.​
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. 200-201.​

This is so Luciferian. We can turn against our creator. We alone on earth can rebel against our creator. The animals still bound in the reptile brain, without the new brain, are slaves to the creator. We, on the other hand, share something of his freedom from the laws of physics (bound in the rote mechanics of the biological brain): we alone can use this divine gift not to serve, like the dumb beasts (animals, Jews, Christians) the creator in a new and profound way. No, we can rebel against him. What's he gonna do now that he's shared his eternal nature with us? Lock us up forever? He wouldn't dare. He'd have to be there too since we have his nature and he's One. Surely you don't believe in a suffering God who would suffer the rebels at the cost of his own crucifixion?

Dawkins was just talking about how human thoughts served as a kind of evolutionary force in the same way that genes apply to biological evolution. He is a good teacher, so he uses a lot of analogies and metaphors. Those can be helpful in explaining new concepts, but they can also be misleading if taken too literally.


Science proves it has no humility since it's only of late been forced to acknowledge that it can't prove a thing but only make educated guess all of which will eventually be found out to be wrong when new ideas and context shred the former facts and realities. Science is doubly arrogant since theology has known, and stated, that truism, from the beginning. We walk by "faith" not scientific empiricism. "Faith" being the ability to accept non-empirical hypotheses that haven't yet been proven, in order to therein use the human ability to make propitious guesses that magically lead to science fruitfulness.

[A critical [scientific] attitude needs for its raw material, as it were, theories or beliefs which are held more or less dogmatically. Thus, science must start with myths, and with the criticism of myths . . ..​

Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations p. 50.​

Look, science is basically just a methodology, not a person. It is not arrogant or humble, and scientists have never tried to hide the fact that they never prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt. Most scientists would not take the position that they have anything to say about untestable claims. I don't see any arrogance there. Perhaps you are thinking about online atheists who argue that science can disprove the existence of God? I'm not taking such a position here.

...

If you're you're still reading this (knowing now the mess you've got yourself into), I don't know how you could believe the memes, ideas, thoughts, of a brain come without their own kind of reproductive apparatus, one that doesn't give a damn about a gene, or flesh, since memes undoubtedly have their own way of getting spread by what the pen-is when it spits its ink onto the virgin page in order to get it into the willing mind whose eyes are spread, or open, wide enough. They say the body is just the genes way of making more genes. I say the genes, and the body, are just the arses memes use to get around and to reproduce.

Dawkins' philosophy of memes is based on analogy with the behavior of genes and should not be taken too literally. Memes don't come with a "reproductive apparatus" any more than genes do. Your tendency to focus on sexual organs and sexual behavior strikes me as rather unproductive, but it is clear that you have given a lot of thought to these ideas.


Earlier in the thread I quoted Bishop Berkeley implying anyone who doesn't perceive God is "stupid." His argument was partly based on the fact that there are no qualities, or qualia, in the universe. The perception of color, or taste, or sound, don't exist anywhere in the universe. Worse, there is no law written that says such and such wavelengths of light should be experienced as the quality yellow. The same physical qualities that cause the qualia yellow could cause the taste of chocolate, or even a sexual orgasm. As Professor Norman O. Brown stated the case, the schizophrenic's problem isn't a case of unreality confusing the poor soul, it's too much of reality for one person to endure. The lawful functioning of the non-schizophrenic mind tricks the bankrupt soul into believing the qualia he's experience in a lawful and universal manner is far more real than it is: he's living in a fools paradise that will transform into a schizophrenic living hell when what the schizophrenic, Bishop Berkeley, and me for that matter, already know, forces itself upon the poverty of their soul.

I am familiar with Berkeley's philosophy and the fact that he ended up with a serious mental illness, but I really don't see the relevance to anything I've been saying. So I'll leave it there.
 
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