ima, “To believe without questioning or to dismiss without investigating is to comport oneself unscientifically.” (Margaret Mead) The predominance of matter over consciousness in a theory that is increasingly being called into question. What you call "science" is, like one person posted, "like an old chair in a new room." Here's a news flash for you: the 19th century is in the past. Ad hominem attacks can never do more than manifest one's own ignorance.
And yet you add "if science isn't your bag" at the end of one of your own comments above. Surely this is an ad hominem remark with all the plausible deniability one could ask for, but present nonetheless.
Why is it that you continue to espouse rational discussion and fact and then continue to state somerthing which is totally false. Christianity is not dying. This of course is not actually logically exactly the same as how many people claim to practice it (although I presume from your reference to 'numbers', you believe it is). However that said, it is not even reducing numerically in terms of adherents. The actual facts are that christian belief is reducing in North America (note not the world). After years of decline, the numbers have steadied in western Europe but in eastern Europe, in South America, in Africa and in Asia (especially China and India) the numbers are increasing dramatically. So you are right the numbers will be changing but not in the direction you suggest! I have stated this previously and quoted the numbers and links so shall not do so again but anyone who wishes can check what I am saying very easily. What is more most of the new believers have come from a non christian background and are therefore those who have now personally chosen the religion, often counter culturally to the society in which they live. They have not simply been born into it. You can intepret this however you wish and consider it an outbreak of mass delusion or whatever, if you so wish (freedom of thought) but you cannot continue to pretend to debate the subject rationally by starting with a factually incorrect statement. There is no freedom of 'variation of fact'! Since as above, these people are making a personal choice, do you have any rational explanation? You seem to espouse the view that they are all in some way less rational and less informed than you and fellow atheists but what actual evidence (not prejudice) do you have for such a proposition? Regards, Gordon.
I don't know what data you have, and I'd be interested in seeing it if you'd care to link to the post where it resides, but the following contradicts what you're saying: The Barna Group has found that adult evangelicals in 1994 was 7%. In 2004, that number was still 7%. The US population grew but the number of evangelicals did not. They also found that the Protestant population with drop below 50% of the national population if the trend toward a decline in Christianity continues. An ARIS (2001) study determined that the number of Christians in the US declined from 85% 1990 to 77% in 2001. Of course, if we look at data from church sources, the numbers are higher. Such data is skewed because of a host of factors, and doesn't do a good job controlling for cross-memberships, people who attend church for social reasons rather than religious, etc. I've another emprical source somewhere that shows a marked and obvious decline in Christian numbers as well as other religions, but I'll have to look for it. references: ARIS (2001). "American Religious Identification Survey," The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Found online at: www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf Barna Group (2005) Annual Barna Group Survey Describes Changes in America’s Religious Beliefs and Practices. Found online at: http://www.barna.org
The way it comes across it seems like youre confusing religion with variations on the first cause which is philosophy/metaphysics. That link from what ive read of it has nothing to do with religion whatsoever. I think youre using that link to back up religious doctorine which is kind of missing the point, you dont have to be religious to believe in god, or even consider that such a thing might exist.
we dismiss HIM just like you dismiss all those other gods Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! www.godchecker.com they were brainwashed from the very young age,plain and simple.young mind is very impresionable. and church leaders are EXPERTS on brainwashing. anyways I dont think Xianity is the majority,Budhism has more followers. now if the whole world believed in ONE god only...
ancient Jews wrote the first Old testament is my understanding, I call it BUYBULL though,'cause its full of fictious garbage www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
helio...it is better to have a religion without a church than it is to have a church without a religion. My interest in a science-compatible God is not at all inconsistent with being "religious." It's like I said previously but in different words: To isolate a part of life and it religion and isolate another and call it science is to dostort both science and religion and disintegrate life. The fact that most people are conditioned by society to do just that is undoubtedly the source of a lot of the divisiions in society. Institutional religion and doctrinized beliefs in some ways deserves disrespect, but not religion per se. People secure three satisfactions from religious experience that cannot be a obtained from a relying on philosophy or science alone: Intellectually, they are at home in the cosmos because they acquire the satisfaction of having reference to origin and destiny. Philosophically, they enjoy the corroboration of ideals of moral values rather than having to settle for the rationalization of personal or societal likes and dislikes. Spiritually, (motivationally) they thrive in the experience of companionship with the Divine (no matter how it is conceived).
************* M*W: Let me throw this in for what it's worth. I believe it wasn't the Jews (Hebrews) who wrote the OT at all. Moses has long been credited with writing at least the first five books (Torah), but that's since been found to be improbable. Seeing as how the stories in the Torah were taken from much earlier Babylonian and Egyptian works, it makes sense to me that it was the Egyptians (albeit the "Abiru") who may have copied the stories from earlier works such as from the Code of Hammurabi, etc. I doubt that the ancient Jews (Hebrews) could read or write, but I could be wrong about this. The influence over the early OT has strong Egyptian influence.
I agree there doesnt have to be an inconsistency, although my original point was that i felt you were offering up metaphysics as the meeting of religion and science, which isnt really what metaphysics is trying to do atall. Yes there is clearly a great deal of comfort offered in religion, i wouldnt agrue with that. The problem with this aspect of religion however is that comfort offen becomes a substitute for truth itself. Id also argue that science tells us x1,000,000 more than religion does about our origins, and can actually provide data to support to support its claims. Im not saying science can tell us everything abour our experiences as humans but it can tell us a hell of alot more about where we came from. Destiny, is another issue - thats predeterminism and parellel universe territory, very subjective/debatable stuff! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Religion isnt really opperating much differently here, the value systems offered up in the bible are the societal 'likes and dislikes' of their day. Historically God or any other diety's moral beliefs are simply a reflection of the virtues and en vouge customs of the era. If a modern God immerged in our time it would be very probable that hed embrace vegetarianism, environmentalism, and equal rights - essentially all our modern value systems which the Gods of the past were unaware of. In this instance God is simply the mouthpiece of emerging social and moral trends. No offense but you make God sound like a faithful dog. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Integrated Theory of Intelligence is nonsense. It is a variant on panpsycism (I forget the name) or some such theory which claims that everything (including inanimate objects) has consciousnous. I do not know why people have to come up with theories allowing them to divorce mind and consciousness from the physical brain. I gtuess they want to believe in OBE and similar concepts.
It makes for a very interesting read there o Dino, not that I would contest to it's legitimacy but I know quite allot about human consciousness. So when I see something knew on the subject of consciousness I tend to get into it very critically. I can tell you this: if an intelligent life form exists out in the universe, their consciousness will be exactly like ours, more advanced civilizations may exist in the universe, but consciousness that is self aware, that can reason, introspect, communicate amongst themselves as we, their consciousness will inevitably be like our own. The word you were referring to is panpsychism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/
Theres actually no real empirical evidence to suggest that basic matter is non-sentient, we just assume it isnt/cant be. Its a completely untested/unverfied belief. we need to be aware and very careful about seperating what we know and what we assume we know. Personally i think the future of quantum theory/metaphysics will lie in understanding that everything simply transfers/exchanges information - i have a feeling thats essentially all consciousness is. Even a particle can interface with incredibly abstract information and react accordingly (see quantum earser experiment).
Godless: Thanks for giving me the correct term: Panpsychism. Like you, I am interested in consciousness, which is how I found panpsychism and due to this thread: The Integrated Theory of Intelligence. They seem very similar to me. Do they seem related to you? You do not seem to believe in either. After reading enough to understand the concepts, both seem to be nonsense, lacking any reason to spend time contemplating them beyond a casual reading of a descriptive article. I have enough trouble dealing with some of the concepts of modern physics (especially Quantum Theory) which have supporting evidence and are extremely useful fields of knowledge. HelioCentric: Lack of evidence against does not support a belief in some concept. I know of no evidence against the existence and powers of Pixie Dust, but decided to ignore it when I discovered that it was not some hallucinogenic substance or a possible seasoning for my food. . Anybody: Is discussion of consciousness pertinent to this thread? The only evidence I have for consciousness is purely subjective. My mind tells me I have it. I know of no evidence that anyone or anything else has consciousness. It does not seem reasonable to believe that I am the only person in the world with consciousness, so I believe that other people have it. When I query another or discuss this subject with other people, I discover that others believe they have consciousness. I never have discussions on the subject with rocks, trees, squirrels, dogs, quantum particles. Obviously I cannot expect an answer if I ask a rock or a squirrel. Hence I am skeptical of their having consciousness, although I tend to think that dogs and squirrels have it. If there are intelligent people elsewhere in the universe (no evidence for this), I expect them to have consciousness. If consciousness can be quantified (I think it can be), then I would guess that dogs & squirrels have it to a lessor degree than you & I. It is interesting to consider the implications of Deep Blue beating Gary Kasparov. When I play chess, there is a part of my mind thinking thoughts like. I am playing chess. I intend to beat this guy or this game looks hopeless. Maybe I can get a date with . . . this weekend. He just deviated from the standard opening. I wonder if he knows something special or just made a mistake. Deep Blue had no such extraneous thoughts, which I consider to be related to my having consciousness. While I do not consider Deep Blue to be intelligent or even a primitive AI device, from a behavioral point of view it seems intelligent. Hence neither intelligent behavior nor complexity seem to be necessary prerequisites for consciousness.
I never based my opinion soley on lack of evidence if you read back what i wrote. Thats one way of looking at it for sure, although that process will only lead towards spotting the human type consciousness. I believe there is a generalised criteria (which varies depending on who you listen to) in philosophy and the sciences. I think you can follow these sets of criterias (or even modify them to create your own) to help you spot other forms of consciousness. I think thats enitrely natural. dogs and squirrels are both mammals so youre obviously more likely to recognise aspects of their awarness that you see in yourself. On the quantum level you definitely have to approach things alittle differently. I agree, AI will either lead us to having to come to terms with consciousness being an entirely mechanised process. Or we will reach prehaps a critical mass where AI cannot proceed any further and in doing so will find the 'hidden' aspect of consciousness. I personally think the first is more likely - that we are simply organic information exhanging machines, i dont think this *has* to be a depressing or scary prospect though and i certainly dont think it would take away from the richeness of our experiences.
