Meeting with Bishop: Faith is a Choice

[_Hoops]

So you think it possible that blue is not a color?

What kind of evidence would you need to settle the question of whether it is or is not a color?

No, that's not what I'm saying. There may indeed be a color blue. But the fact that you see blue, call it blue does not make it blue. It exists outside of your experience of it. Your experience of it does not define it, it exists whether you experience it or not.

[_mikwut]

Hello Rambo,

Thankyou mikwut.

Your welcome, thank you for the discussion.

I'm just curious how you tell the difference between you feel that God is guiding you or it just being the thoughts in your head? Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to be rude but when I believed I did feel god was guiding me in my life. Now I just think those were my own thoughts and there wasn't a god at all in the equation.

It is perceptions, and personal judgment and trust. That is where I think we all are at. I addressed this somewhat in this thread with my analogy to love. Many people haven't experienced it and might believe it doesn't exist. Learning what love isn't is valuable when they gain insight and experience in what love is. I believe that is analogous to experiencing God. We perceive him and his love differently and in different stages. I don't dismiss this non-belief.

my best, mikwut

[_Buffalo]

Buffalo,

For your reading pleasure, I submit to you a portion the body of evidence in support of my world view. That is, the combined knowledge and research of all biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, psychology, history, anthropology, and geology

If you need more, let me know. I know this pales in comparison to the tingly feeling in your tummy when you think about god or engage in solipsistic defenses of god on the internet, but I hope it's sufficient.

This is ridiculous. Are we to understand that when your mind or brain makes deductions, inductions, and abductions based on the reading pleasure you have provided us that nothing of a resonated reasoned feeling is the result for you? Like when I first grasped arithmetic? What is it about judgment, discernment, interpretation, decide, form opinion regarding, drawing of conclusions, probability, indefinite, unsettled, subjective, intuited, etc... do you not seem to understand? Or think that when you use the banal term "feeling" that that same "feeling" shell game applies to you?

mikwut

My point was that in all our accumulated learning, we can find no god or even anything that points to a god anywhere. That is consistent with my world view.

[_mikwut]

Rambo,

Hi mikwut,

Are you pointing out that these scientific things are pointing towards atheism? Or does it just seem that way at this point in human history?

I have noticed that atheism is getting more popular especially among people in my age group. Most of the non Mormons I talk to around my age group or younger are atheist or agnostic. Do you think it's because they have learned a lot more because of the internet and because there is more science out there that goes against religion than ever before? Or is it just a popular fad?

I think it includes both and is complex. A sophisticated atheist like Stak or EAllusion on this board (although differing on their atheistic approaches) aren't what I discern to be the norm, Buffalo I think expresses the norm. But that is the case for theists as well. Historically there have been times in the last 200 years where atheism generally was more populace and more sophisticated. I think that has always been the case. There are more "churched" people today than 150 years ago, at least in america. Of course atheism is growing and waning in different places at different rates. I do believe there were more atheists populace wise and more sophisticated ones at the turn of the 19th century and during the sixties in the 20th century. That is why Alister McGrath can title a more recent book, "The Twilight of Atheism" with some justification for doing so. The more salient point is atheism has always existed.

my regards, mikwut

[_Buffalo]

Buffalo,

You believe differently, but you cannot establish a connection between your intuitions and between a real third party, namely God. Your intuition is evidence of the state of your particular psyche. Your brain is not an extrasensory organ, and you have no evidence that it is. Your emotion is indicative of states internal to you, not external to some supernatural being whose existence has not even been established.

Your responses are simply too cliché, lack depth - and insist on inconclusive opinion that you state as resolved fact without support that you provide. I believe as I have stated on my first post on this forum and many following that atheism is possible, nihilism is possible, and theism is possible. That reflects richly and substantively on the real nature of all the evidence and our human and concrete experiences to me. A ridiculous stance that "Buffalo" left the Mormon church and shortly thereafter figured out "the combined knowledge and research of all biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, psychology, history, anthropology, and geology" and it just so happens to be eerily similar to a rigid scientistic and immature type of atheism that is faddish right now isn't particularly appealing to me. I don't have discussions with fundamentalist dogmatists and you are resembling them in methodology and substance. I will give you the last slogan or bumper sticker to post. This is simply not a satisfying dialogue for me to continue.

my best, mikwut

In none of this testy diatribe could I find a response to my post.

[_Buffalo]

Quite. So if Buffalo accepts your challenge and tries to meet it, how will you decide whether he has succeeded or not? In other words, where is this standard for deciding what is 'actually real'?

If you don't have such a standard, how will you evaluate any evidence he provides?

I'm confident that I won't be faced with that problem. At best he can point to some universal experience that he will say means it's real. I.e. everyone sees a blue sky, therefor whether the sky is blue or not is irrelevant. Or something like that.

His problem then becomes that he's making assumptions and is taking by faith that blue is indeed a color. I'm confident that he will have no evidence to support his claim that his evidence gives us full access to external reality.

Since you insist on speaking at the adult table, I've found a cartoon to keep you happy. Enjoy.

[_Buffalo]

You've already admitted defeat, and my characterization of your weak-ass position is accurate.

For your reading pleasure, I submit to you a portion the body of evidence in support of my world view. That is, the combined knowledge and research of all biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, psychology, history, anthropology, and geology

If you need more, let me know. I know this pales in comparison to the tingly feeling in your tummy when you think about god or engage in solipsistic defenses of god on the internet, but I hope it's sufficient.

Really, Buffalo. You've been more nimble in the past. Time to step up your game.

I've admitted nothing and there is nothing to be defeated. I've proposed nothing and I've not used any religious language nor appealed to anything other than logic and reason.

I am asking you to provide some logical explanation as to why what you regard as evidence, your experiential interaction with the evidence, comports, accords, or supports what is actual reality.

The Simon Belmont Apple Gambit. It's all you've got. Cherish it.

[_Hoops]

Ok.

[_Themis]

Dodging again. LOL

With the color blue it is irrelevant whether different people see something different. What is relevant is whether we can all pick out the same object that is said to be blue. That's why reliability is important, and how some things are not as reliable as other things.

Except that in no way makes it blue.

Did you miss the part where I said that was irrelevant. Blue is a human word to describe what one is seeing. All that is relevant is that almost everyone can pick out the same thing called blue.

[_mikwut]

Hello Themis,

mikwut wrote:

Our faculties form beliefs spontaneously from reality imposing itself on us in the form of evidence.

Themis responded: I agree. The expereince is the evidence, and then we have to provide the interpretation of that evidence. Some may withhold interpretation due to thinking it may be to unreliable to have much chance of being accurate. I think this is where the divide is between religious and less religious if that is the proper words to use. :)

I am pleased to agree with you.

Quote:
mikwut: Sometimes the beliefs are reliable, sometimes they are not.

Themis responded: Reliability needs to be reproducible across the board in order to be reliable in the way we need to have the belief/interpretation likely be an accurate proposition of reality. By realty I mean a proposition that is true for everyone regardless of belief/interpretation.

With empirical facts I agree. With personal cognitions we often don't have the luxury. We are left to discern based on the functioning of our belief forming abilities. When we take witness testimony we cannot reproduce across the board like you suggest. Memory often fails, often it doesn't. So I agree to a point.

Quote:
mikwut: No one, and I mean that literally, no one has formed a belief for spontaneous auto-liposuction from the existence of large boulders.

Themis: Don't we have someone who does form beliefs based on their expereince with a certain mountain, and can glean information from looking and analyzing it?

I am not positive I understand your point.

mikwut: Quote:
The vast majority of mankind has formed the belief in a God being or beings - that is factual and that is not possible without evidence of some kind from reality upon their/our cognitive faculties.

Themis: Very understandable. With very limited knowledge about the world around our ancestors they would've course come up with all kinds of things to explain why the earth shakes, the wind howls, and what the hell is that red stuff coming down the mountain. God really is a generic term that can encompass all beliefs about some powerful creature or entity man has come up with to explain something about the world they inhabit. If aliens have visited us in the past I think our ancestors would have thought of them as Gods. I suspect some of our ancestors also had night terrors, visions, etc. I wonder how they would have first explained their visions they got from trying out that new plant they found the other day. WOW good stuff.

I certainly aware of anthropological atheism, I think there is a great deal of truth in it and what you just said. I think my ancestors also confronted reality and the world around them in a similar, if not exact, way that I experience as well. That is at least as empirical as any of the other interpretations you have provided that also can be true. Reality is complex and it is manifold.

my regards,