(No I don’t make my heart beat – if I sit here now and pray as hard as I can for it to stop, it will keep going)

Actually most people are not aware of their subconscious… that’s why it’s called sub

Sure we haven’t entirely explained how the mind brain connection works. Just like I pointed out, even now, if we dissected your eye – we could be certain it was a functioning eye, but even then, none of us could be 100% certain you literally saw the world identical to how I see it for instance. Same if we sliced off your ear. Regardless none of this changes the fact that these operations run just fine w/ regular matter. The mind, like everything else, grows with age. None of us remember being 1-3. At most I have a fleeting memory of me in a bathtub, but for all I know it could be contrived. Obviously as I aged my mind became more powerful, and as I grow older it will slowly fall apart. This really kills the entire notion of a ghost in the machine, since the mind, a product of the brain, grows, and breaks in perfect harmony with the brain(just like sight, hearing, smell, etc).

I agree we don’t entirely understand every last iota of the neural workings of the brain, but there is no reason anymore to doubt that it isn’t a material process. I don’t understand why this terrifies you? If you were 100% certain it was a ghost in the machine(based off sound empirical testing that you just argued is a fantastic part of the universe), it wouldn’t change the sincerity of your love, or your earnest desire to goto college. But if you know it’s hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc, suddenly the world isn’t sincere enough for you? How come? And keep in mind, just because you’re scared of the truth, doesn’t change the truth. I wish the Iraq war wasn’t going on…but that doesn’t change the fact that it is.

Mind is a product of matter, not “over it.” If it was over it, brain damage, aging, flus, drugs, alcohol, traumatic sights, brain cancer, syphilis, concussions, a stroke etc, wouldn’t change your “mind.” Yet after my Grandma had a stroke for instance, she was a incoherent invalid until she died. No soul in that scenario….

i havent forgotten chris!!!

recanted your belief in yahweh for deism yet? It’s the most intellectually honest thing to do…

im fixing to make my pimp hand strong, you know not to talk to me like that trick

just kidding

but in all seriousness let me go ask my neurons what they think about that

they have the final word

Silly misunderstanding still (Have you taken any science courses in college? Even psychology 101 goes over this with ample evidence). Your neurons are the faculties that allow you to ask and think, so you can’t ask them anything. Just like you can’t “look at your eyes looking.” or “hear your ears hearing.” If you think you’re separate from your brain, I again ask you to prove it. Why is it that brain damage, aging, flus, drugs, alcohol, traumatic sights, brain cancer, syphilis, concussions, a stroke, tumors, etc change your personality.

chris in the meantime could you sign this petition?

its a petition to allow BOTH parents to have equal time in their childrens lives post-divorce.

what ends up happening is one parent gets primary custody while the other one “visits” mostly dads. the amount of time the court allows you usually is around 4 days a month. it is extremely difficult to change this unless your ex is a crackhead.

but children need both parents, not one. and alot of the times an ex wife will use this position to bully and manipulate the other parent due to child support owed…which ive gone through personally.

kids need both parents and this petition will help

thanks so much!!!

ok never mind the link didnt come up

ill try it again:

hmm

there has been A LOT of ‘meantime’

maybe, if I see the link and get to read it thoroughly I’ll decide. Divorce law is something I’m quite ignorant of, although my attorney is a close family friend and primarily a divorce lawyer…so I could seek her insight.

I’m speaking in Miami 3 times tomorrow (and already twice today) if any Miami peeps wanna come out and say hello:

http://miamivineyard.com/

Everything that is psychological is simultaneously physiological. Many psychological things are certainly controllable. Muscles are fired from the nervous system and yet a person can decide exactly when to make them flex. It’s not instinct or the mere response to a stimuli; it’s free will. Just because something can be measured doesn’t mean it wasn’t designed or a neuron fired for a purpose.

The 2nd of of thermodynamics talks about increasing entropy within a closed system (e.g. the universe). The universe cannot be infinitely old or else we would have infinite disorder. However, mass (or its energy equivalent) is conserved. Did the universe come into existence by some yet to be discovered phenomenon or was there design? Each answer contained strictly to this observation requires exactly the same amount of blind faith. It’s the historical case where Christianity gains its strengths (not 100% proof less God deny us our free will by making Himself as evident as the Sun, but its strengths come more notably outside of science).

Biological processes support a gradualism style of macroevolution. However, the fossil record supports punctured equilibrium and rapid evolution. Which is it? Either way, the processes necessary to create what we see today are, according to evolutionary theory, random errors in the genetic code (which itself arose randomly). Trillions of errors produce the complex designs we see today including sexual reproduction which would have had to evolve separately (male and female), eyes, bacterial motors, the human brain, the respiratory/circulatory system As for Occam’s razor, this process is far more complex and unlikely than design. If “all else equal”, then we’ll go with the simpler answer. Existence of art implies the existence of an artist much the same as intelligent design implies the existence of a Creator.

Also, let us assume for a moment that the universe is not flat with respect to space-time (this is what most big bang theorists propose). If space-time is bent to be shaped like a doughnut and the universe is a closed system, then we could have millions of light-years of aging in the outer universe (in Schwartzchild years) in a handful of earth days.

I didn’t complete my point about thermodynamics. Basically, it would require a violation of the rule to get what we see today (mass/energy conserved but there’s still order). Everything that has a beginning has a cause. We get back to an uncaused cause. What is it? Is the violation of the rule natural or not? Both answers require the same amount of blind faith when contained to this specific question.

Also, I won’t be fooled by “time didn’t exist ‘before the universe’” Even if you get it down to moving particles that somehow spontaneously came into existance, time is there even when it’s not measurable. We still have the “problem” of an uncaused cause that violates the 2nd law.

oh lord, more of these spurious claims from answersingenesis.com

Do I seriously have to waste my time with these canards?

I have to ask, Jeremy, did John send you here?

there is no violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, HIGH SCHOOL biology text books go into this just fine. I’d like to know if you people have even taken a science course in a secular institution, before I start repeating basic principles from my teenage years.

Chris,

Please allow me to repeat a basic principle from my teenage years as well. Ad hominum (of myself or just becuase another entity you don’t like made the claim) does not replace the question. In fact, an ad hominum attack is usually just used as a last resort when all else has failed. That hasn’t happened now, has it? I’d say “answer the question”, but you know as well as I do that the question doesn’t have an answer that we can find or measure yet. My post was designed to raise more questions than answers.

Your ad hominum attack on me fails. I’ve read many a biological sciences and physical sciences text (admittedly at the undergraduate level, so perhaps your graduate education in science can enlighten me… actually, it’s pretty clear from what you’ve written that you probably have about the same background I do in this — a firm grasp but still a layperson). An education does not have to be from a secular institution to be valid. I have medical doctor friends who did their undergraduate at Christian schools and this gave them the science foundation to become MDs. As for me, I’ve taken biological and physical sciences from from the University of Minnesota (as secular as they come and in terms of the quality of science taught, it’s one of the top 3 research institutions in the world and it’s the folks doing the research who also teach the classes). With ~50,000 students there is no way to say that all are understanding the material, so the institution only means so much, but it’s something you’re overly concerned with so I brought it up. As for where I stood there, I graduated summa cum ladue (3.9 GPA). I’m more of a labor markets / compensation person, but I have a firm grasp of the basics in science. That is, I have enough of a grasp to know that my last post raises more questions than answers; I’m asking questions that science doesn’t have the answer to. Science tries to think about natural and observable things, and we go back enough to turn it into a philosophical question rather than a scientific one.

At a minimum, you should see that Ad hominum almost always fails. A person smart enough to think about bent space time and how the 2nd law relates to the conservation of mass at the origins probably has more than a cursory high school understanding of biology (which, by the way, is outside the scope of thermodynamics…).

Now that I look at your post again, maybe you have the same confusion on the point that my evolutionary biology professor did (it would explain why you’re bringing up a biology book with respect to the 2nd law). On the first day of class, he outlined his case against creationism. He used the 2nd law argument confined to Earth which is not a closed system and drove the argument from there. However, the universe probably is a closed system. Since I’ve only heard creationists talk about the 2nd law problem with respect to the cosmic origins, I asked him about how it applies to to that. He said time did not exist “before” the big bang, so it was a question outside the scope of science. I was disappointed in the answer, but he was absolutely right. Back to the question:

Mass/energy is conserved. Therefore, in a closed universe, without violating the laws, it has always existed in its present quantity. The 2nd law requires increasing entropy, but if mass/energy has always existed, then we’d expect to see infinite disorder. We see some level of order.

I can think of at least three ways to explain this:
1. An uncaused cause
2. An exception to the law (none has been found, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out — look at the history behind atomic theory to see that science is constantly changing; what we know now could be turned on its head)
3. A yet to be discovered property that could account for it

All of these require some degree of blind faith to accept. That’s my point. I would say it takes more faith to accept only natural explanations, but that’s a judgment call. That’s where looking at the historical/philosophical case for Christ is something more divisive.

First off, I didn’t do any ad hominem. That would be a direct insult to you, which I don’t believe I did – so quite a waste of time.

Look i’ll gladly address each of your points, however I’d like to talk to John first – so we can stay on topic. John and I were having a conversation, that started about “Is Dawkins an Atheist,” and it started to diverge into some other categories, and now I haven’t heard back from him in several days. If John is done talking to me, then I will gladly move on to you. If John isn’t done, at the very least I’d want to move our discussion to some new thread, so as to avoid confusion. I’m the only non-theist here, and gang bang attacks can be meddlesome.

Just to prevent repetition though I suggest you read this thread through. I’ve explained countless times my position on the “cause” of the cosmos. And it’s quite cumbersome to go over it again, when I’ve address your claim on it, numerous times here.

So john, the ball is in your court
-Chris

chis, ill write you tonight. alot going on

thanks for the patience!

john c

dude, come out to the john lennox creationist think tank party in tampa nov 1st.
its free and they reserve seats for you and the lady organizing it said i can reserve more if youd like. me and a friend are going.

the topic for the night is that “dinosaurs were put here by satan”

its going to be a real treat!

j/k but you should come out since its nearby

ok i finally have time to address you and this will be the last time i am able..its been really busy for me and theres only so many times i can go over my view to someone who may or may not be interested in listening. i hope to at least shed some kind of light to my stance and maybe privately you can take this explanation to heart in some kind of way.

well i already addressed you with the hitler scenario. you want me to attribute hitlers deeds to his brain but i already told you that i attribute what hitler did to his mind, where all conscious decision making takes place. chris, we are not zombies…our philosophical and daily decisions are not being made unbeknownst to us, for us, in our subconscious. at some point hitler contemplated what he was doing, and knew. bad decision upon bad decision brought him to where he was. and for Gods sake, the guy attended nazi board room meetings so i highly doubt he was insane.

again i want to stress to you that every court of law presupposes that we operate with mind over matter and that WE are in control of our actions. insanity defenses hardly if ever work and the burden of proof would be on you to show that you were NOT in control. now when i say mind over matter i do not mean that we are able to fly if we contemplate flying hard enough or that we can levitate dump trucks. what i mean is that for the most part our minds or “selves” are in control of the actions we perform and that is where the buck stops. most of us are not invalids chris.

now this brings me to your next point about you down playing, or over-emphasizing the mind being a strictly physical construct, nothing more nothing less. well, if thats the case then why can they not find the mind or the “seat of consciousness” in the brain? i think you take the deceptively safe route on this one and think that since the mind emerges from the brain (subject to dispute in some circles) that is all there is to it. yes, its true that the mind requires the brain to function but the mind itself emerges and becomes a complete seperate entity. the mind itself is not the brain nor can they locate it, much less put it under a microscope. there are many differing camps and lines of thought on this topic but nothing is conclusive. but it certainly is not outside of the scope of the subject matter to say that the mind may actually be metaphysical. there are plenty of people who feel that it is. im sure your views rest with daniel dennett and his group. but id like to point out that in much the same way in saying that the mind may emerge from physical properties and still not be physical…you can also say the same thing about gravity. gravity is not matter but yet gravity emerges from matter. the same with protons. protons are not charge but yet charge emerges from protons. i think that is a good comparison in laymans terms.

so the big question, does this mean that mind is not physical? well, currently noone knows just what the mind is or even how to define it. so you want me to prove to you that the mind is more? well science cant even FIND the mind chris, so theres not much more i can say about that. and dont even begin to tell me that MRI or fMRI images SHOW the mind. they do not

so im beginning to wonder though, if you feel that ANYTHING is metaphysical or transcendent at all. perhaps you have a problem with that idea. even christopher hitchens believes in transcendence. if thats the case you should really check yourself and see if youre being intellectually honest with what actually happens in the reality we exist in. we may not agree on what the first cause is but by definition the first cause has got to be out of space, time, matter, and energy as we know it since it CAUSED all of that. im sure you can agree with that. therefore it is transcendent and you believe in the most basic of transcendent ideas.

i also wanted to see if you agree with this statement:

“the best things in life are not things”

is this true?

now i take it that you believe in scientific fact. but i also want to know if you feel that the universe presents such a thing as moral fact. for instance, do you feel that it is a moral fact that hitler killing 12 million people was wrong…….. agree?

now i also want you to think about this:
imagine right after the big bang when all of the early universe material is being hurled through space to go on to from stars, planets, galaxies etc etc. somewhere in all of that material eventually it would be determined that hitler or anyone who kills 12 million people would be wrong, or that humans should be given human rights and lying is bad.

chris, was morality determined in the blueprint of the cosmos or do you at least feel that the all along, the universe had the potential to not only be rational, but also moral as well?

definitely makes you go “hmmm”

in addition to this id like to point out that even one of your boys, stephen pinker believes that we have innate morality. he feels that we discovered it much like we discovered math or something along those lines. now there is a big difference between discovering something and INVENTING it. and i hope to God you dont feel that we invented morality…that would be like saying we invented TRUTH. now dont get me wrong, human beings have different sorts of customs and even morality changes slightly between peoples. but what im talking about is basic human morality, and that does not change.

now back to this transcendence deal. its a funny thing this transcendence. well richard dawkins believes in it because he goes around saying that as much as he believes in darwinian evolution he also believes that we should RISE above it and become more than it implies.
and for the sake of the argument i agree with dawkins. chris we are the only animals who DO NOT WANT to be animals.
now, if i believed as you do that we owe our existence on a generic, one of a trillion little planets, soon doomed for destruction to extraordinary luck, id have to reach outside of this situation to some transcendent ideal in order to find meaning and a reason to go on. and we should go on with life right chris? the whole value we put on such a bleak existence IS transcendent of that very existence and you cant deny that. it happens all of the time

thats pretty much all ive got to say right now.

peace nukka!

oh yeah, ps. that was an ad hominum attack on jeremy!

you should be ashamed of yourself!

Glad you’re back John.
I have zero intentions of going to a creationist gathering…come on! Haha.

I’ll do my usual reply and follow you up paragraph by paragraph.

John what I said was to attribute hitler’s decision to his material brain/mind. The words can often be ambiguous, so when I said brain, to be clear that meant mind as well, since mind is a product of brain. As sight is a product of eyes. Never said we were zombies haha. I’m aware Hitler contemplated, and I agree, he made heinous decisions. No dispute from me John.

Our mind IS matter, or at the very least a product. It isn’t some intagible ghost in the machine. As I pointed out, if it WAS seperate from our material brain, strokes, fevers, concussions, amnesia, parkinsons, marijuana, alcohol, lsd, wellbutrin, tumors, alzheimers, etc wouldn’t CHANGE our personality. I never said anyone was an invalid. Or zombie. Now the ad hominem or at the very least, willful chicanery with words is on your end.

Unfortunately I’ve already answered your seat of consciousness question a few times. As I said, read Stephen Pinkers how the mind works, the blank slate, or the stuff of thought. Consciousness is not ONE neuron. I’m sure even that idea sounds absurd. It’s a combination of a myriad of faculties. So if you lost your sight faculties, your level of consciousness would be compromised. If you subsequently lost your hearing faculties, furthermore. If you had a Lombardy following that, even more so. Now let’s take out your hypothalamus, and see if you even feel senses of joy or loathing. Etc etc etc.

You continue to say the mind forms a separate entity, for over 2 months now I’ve asked you to PROVE IT. As far as “feeling” that way, feelings are irrelevant to truth. Amputees “feel” ghost limbs, it doesn’t mean there is such a thing. Individuals on PSP feel “god like powers” yet they lack them. Frankly your electron and gravity analogies do not make a lick of sense here.

Yes MRI and fMRI images show the mind. I already posted that article that shows direct memory is stored, and can be electrocuted back into play, with all the previous sensations coming about. That’s quite physical. We know the sight property is physical, we know sound is physical, we know smell is physical, we know facial recognition is physical, we know euphoria is physical, we even know the neurotransmitters that produce stress and love. I’m sorry, your ghost in the machine has run out of gaps to hide in. You ask me to not even begin to tell you the truth, well that’s sad, and impoverishing.

I’m not Christopher Hitchens. Why even bring him up? Give me an example, and I’ll give my comments on transcendence.

As far as the cause of the comsos not having space, matter, or time to it – I don’t know. Same answer as always. If it’s a big crunch, big bounce, multi verse, string theory scenario, than you’re wrong. If it’s not, it’s not. No idea on my end.
Your statement is subjective. What’s the best to me isn’t the best to you. The best tv show to me is Arrested Development, to you, who knows. The best ice cream to me is strawberry. You? Silly subjective statement.

We’ve been over this Hitler thing already, I’m tired of red herrings. I want to see your “something more” or this conversation is really over with, and I’ve come out on top

Fine, in along with that evolution dinosaurs were slaughtered en masse by a meteor, homo-sapiens suffered tens of thousands of years of famine and death in an ice yeage. Tens of thousands were wiped out in a natural plague. 99.9% of species have gone extinct in a violent arms race. Yeah, some design, some designer. Benevolence…dubious.

I don’t think the universe is in itself moral, as detailed above. Plus the suns going out in 5 billion years, and Andromeda will run into the milky way shortly after that. Not to mention the trillions of years the universe will suffer a heat death. This universe does not care about us, it shows no signs of it. We are alone, on a tiny rock – and frankly that’s awesome enough for me

As I’ve said morals can be subjective too – and no one has a consummation on a solid moral code. None of this has made me go “hmmm” instead I’ve gone “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”

Maybe you should read more Stephen Pinker. In the blank slate he talks about how pedophilia, sociopathy, megalomania, psycopathy, etc are INNATE as well and genetic. He claims the golden rule is most likely innate, and I don’t doubt this, as I’ve said time and time again, almost all animals exert the golden rule and have morals amongst their own ilk. We are nothing special in the animal kingdom in the moral regard. If anything we are more crass, compare the destruction we do to the planet, versus EVERY OTHER SPECIES EVER.

We invent some morality not others. We invented every written down moral code ever, that’s for sure. The morman morality is invented, the islamic morality invented, the christian morality invented, etc.

Richard Dawkins statements on rising above Darwinian evolution have nothing to do with transcendence. For instance, he points out wearing a condom is rising above Darwinian evolution, yet there is nothing transcendent here. And I don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to not wanting to be an animal. That’s like saying I don’t want to be white skinned. There’s nothing I can do about that. But furthermore I have no problem being “an animal.” I evolved like everything else and am a product of said evolution. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Well if for you it takes “something more” to get out of bed, I don’t know what to say but embrace it, if that’s truly paramount to your remaining happy, sober, and active. I don’t need it. The very LUCK you mentioned is why I’m so happy to be alive. I won, the hardest lottery fathomable, in the entire universe, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste my time exercising my winnings!

Jeremy can wait his turn
-Chris

ok to be quite honest i am not read up enough on mind body relations so theres nothing more i can say about that. MRI’s and fMRI’s do not show the mind itself, even the article you sent me stated that. and to use your example in the same way, eyes do not show sight. lets get that clear, the mind is still an unsolved mystery.

i cannot understand how you couldnt comprehend the example between gravity being a non-matter but rather arising from matter itself. that example in my mind still stands whether you care to accept it or not. you said it yourself and i agree that the mind is the result from a myriad of faculties. but thats why its so hard to pin down. how many neurons and synapses does it take make a conscious mind? its not that simple and they even admittedly have a difficult time defining exactly what consciousness is. but basically ill say this, we as people are not 100% instinct…the inner workings of the self and free will are not machine-like. my neurons do not say to me “do” and i do like two gears turning against one another. id say its much more complex than that. and ill use hitler again as an example. lets say there was something wrong with hitlers “machinery” (brain)
and he did have abnormal desires due to some mental illness. to make a long story short, in the spectrum of those desires, do you feel that he was not at all aware of those feelings..did they completely overtake his mind to where he was out of control? or can sociopathic thoughts be much more subtle than that? like for instance, if you have the odd desire of wanting to harm animals. can you simultaneously have that impulse and also the awareness of it to keep it in check? well, that kind of goes without saying. and that is precisely why people are not the result of 100% instinct otherwise wed either be angels or we’d be insane. there would be no choice in the matter. and chris, EVERY human being experiences deciding between impulse and instinct. even yourself.

yeah dawkins does talk about using condoms to go against darwinian urges but that is not at all what im talking about. im talking about dawkins reference to ethics, principles, and morals that go AGAINST darwinian natural selection or at least its implications. ethics, principles, and morals are transcendent ideas chris. they are the standards we use in conducting ourselves as people. we happen to break alot of them too because we arent perfect.
again, we are the only animals who do not want to be animals. as a functioning society and im sure youd agree, we dont make it a complete habit to act on all our base impulses, we have standards…. i dont even have to go into that because you know already.

chris, you dont really give into every single urge now do you?

welcome to the human race.

and no, you can tell me all you want that people invented muslim morality or christian morality etc etc but when you cut through all of that surface crap there still is an underlying basic human morality. it is an absolute MORAL FACT that hitler killing 12 million people was wrong. take a survey on that.
dont point out to me petty differences and shallow morality and strawman the idea. i heard on the news recently that this guy kidnapped a brother and sister who were 8 and 9 years old. now when he entered their home, he killed both their parents and their other older sibling and then took the two remaining kids out into the woods. he sexually assaulted the boy, killed him and burned him IN FRONT of his sister. and through a turn of events she later escaped and was the only survivor. again chris, was it a MORAL FACT that what this man did was evil, or does that information elude you/us? if there indeed is a society that respects this sort of behavior, out of respect for anthropology should we allow them to carry on with it? now, you can turn this whole idea the other way around and think of compassionate or sacrificial deeds that are at the other end of the spectrum.

you had some good points and again i am a layperson and not super well read on all of the material but i just felt like i had to re-address these things in closing.

thanks for the exchange homeslice

looking forward to reading you and jeremy’s exchanges

john

I literally JUST woke up, so my reply may have typos. I’m a bit of a groggy zombie for the first hour of every morning.

The mind is not an unsolved mystery. Granted Scientist don’t literally know every nook and cranny, and in addition, all humans come out with a different Genome, so we all have nuance in our hearts, kidneys, lungs, brains, etc. Now I won’t deny, we are quite possibly ignorant of the brain the most, over all other organs – however, we are at a stage where literally, if we had that scene from “hannibal” going on, a neurologist could open your skull and start slicing away major parts of YOU. As in “lets cut away his ability to see faces.”

I had forgotten all about this article, however I really think, if you take the time to read it, and don’t mind learning something that you don’t want to be the truth, you’ll certainly come out, informed.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580394,00.html
Yes it’s written by Pinker, yes he’s atheist, but he really is the leading scientist in his field today – and his lack of theism has nothing to do with that. That article will go into the nuance of consciousness.
“you said it yourself and i agree that the mind is the result from a myriad of faculties. but thats why its so hard to pin down.”
Well for me that’s exactly why it’s so easy. It just shows consciousness/mind is a myriad of varying running parts. It isn’t JUST ONE neuron. So again, if we cut off the part of your brain that connected to your eyes, and allowed for sight – would you not now have a “compromised” consciousness. Just as we can slowly cut away various parts that make you – you, you grew them as well. So let’s try a different path. Do you remember the first 5 years of your life? I don’t know about you but I don’t. Never did. I really “came to” around the age of 4-6. 1-3 is nothing. And of course conception to the age of 1 is literally nothing. Just as your brain grew, synapsed, evolved, so did your mind. And as you grow old and your body starts to weather, so does your brain/mind.

As far as how many neurons, we have trillions of course. But the same applies to your muscles, skin, heart, liver etc. Trillions of cells typically are required to maintain, build, repair, etc, those organs. The difference is, doing brain study is controversial. It’s easier to study and run test on peoples other organs than it is the brain – mostly for legal reasons haha.

“but basically ill say this, we as people are not 100% instinct…the inner workings of the self and free will are not machine-like. my neurons do not say to me “do” and i do like two gears turning against one another. id say its much more complex than that”

Sure not EVERYTHING you do is some knee-jerk whimsical, uncontrolled process – however isn’t a some bit of it? I mean we all know the phrase “woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?” And I have, some mornings, for no reason, I wake up happier, or angrier, or lazier, or more productive. And I can’t always tell you why. I know every time I goto sleep, I have no control of what I’m experiencing and dreaming. I can’t control my hunger, my thirst, what I’m attracted to (as you know we all have a certain taste when it comes to looks), what smells I like and others don’t, etc.

I think Hitler was screwed up, yes. But I think first off, this is far more explainable by his nuances genome, than it is by an omnipotent deity. I have not researched sociopaths to any special degree, but I can say this. Just as I can’t 100% explain why I prefer women to men, and homosexual men to women, they are “just born that way,” I’d say it’s mostly likely the same of people with the ability to murder. They are just drawn to it. I’m sure Hitler was aware, and Hitler did from time to time exercise control, it just depends in varying examples. Regardless I’m sure the man was AS cognitive, and AS sentient as you and I.

The sociopath question is difficult. I mean even if the child (my reading is limited, but it does exist here) knows killing animals is wrong, the child may not be able to exercise control. I know as a child a lot of my baser instincts were acted on, just due to youth and a lack of wisdom if you will. Regardless even if you chain the child up, and throw away the key, this isn’t like a brief penchant, just as the child felt thirst and hunger, I’m pretty the sociopath child still feels that lust for murder – so not acting on it will be quite uncomfortable and never truly go away. As far as we’d either be angels or insane, that’s a very, very, ignorant and simple way of looking at nature. As I said we all have different genomes, and we all vary. We do have “angels” on this earth, and we do have the insane, and we have varying levels in between.

Yes but Dawkins does also acknowledge that the same way your genes make you black/white, red eyed/green eyed, tan/pale, etc parts of your neural faculties are equally “decided.” That’s why literally sociopaths tend to breed sociopaths, introverts breed introverts, extroverts breed extroverts, etc. He’s saying as a society we need to recognize this and than come to a democratic decision on what we do about it. So for instance, and this is very possible, if we find the genetic make up that breeds a sociopath, what do we do with that information as a society? Scary thought, and don’t feel any need to answer, I won’t at this time.

I’m an animal and I don’t mind saying it. Also I don’t try “not” to be one. And even if I did that’s akin to trying not to be white, I can’t wind that charade.

Animals exercise control as well. Read some primate studies. Even dog training shows this. Watch the dog whisperer on A&E – that man can certainly make dogs go against their base instincts, to please their alpha master. Nothing different or surprising there.

I agree that there is an underlining moral premise, most of the time. But again, where as the massive majority of us recognize the golden rule, you must accept that a sociopath simply doesn’t. Nor does a psychopath. They may pretend to acknowledge it, and use fakery, but it’s not binding to them in anyway. Regardless all animals have very similar moral fabrics to us, so it’s not surprising to me that over 3.5 billion years of evolution, we developed similar moral structure form our ancestors – if we were wanton crazies (this applies to all species) we’d/they’d die out.

Of course I find what the man did to be heinous. But we still need to acknowledge something, he didn’t. Why is this? Why doesn’t he share our “transcendence?” because transcendence here is crap, and our variations in genetics is what determines our base nature. No we won’t tolerate what he did, because the massive majority of us find it repugnant, and therefore will have a overwhelming say. That’s just democracy. No need for a deity to enter the picture. Although I’d ask, why’d the deity create this monster?

If you admit you’re ignorant of what you’re talking about, than maybe don’t talk about it? This seems reasonable. I don’t know an iota about baseball, so I’ll never comment on it. Seriously, go read the blank slate, or how the mind works. Atheism and Religion isn’t discussed in that book, it’s irrelevant. I loved the books personally, real page turners.

I’m not looking forward to Jeremy at all lol. Literally what he said is straight out of basic creationism propaganda. All those questions have very simple answers, and I don’t like repeating basic high school science lessons. That’s not ad hominem, that’s just fact.

-Chris

did you guys hear? something with the Large Hadron Collider went seriously wrong. this is footage from near the swiss border.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=43515485

fair enough

although when you state that you do not try to be more than an animal, i do not believe it. chris youre not going to tell me that you dont have at least some semblance of self control or any kind of basic discipline in your life that resist an assortment of random urges. so, you do nothing more than eat, sleep, poop, and procreate? not buying it. society doesnt let us get off that easy, much less our parents. to some degree, we will all inevitably have to “die to ourself” (christian concept) and our desires living as people with other people.

morals, ethics, and principles that you DO NOT find in the animal kingdom are those things in us that do not allow us to act like animals. if you dont impose them on yourself, society would be quite happy to make you uncomfortable until you do, at least while people are watching lol!
a HUMAN may be able to train a dog or a monkey as an OUTSIDE stimuli, but animals do not have some sort of self discipline or ethics amongst their kind.

and these are some lyrics to a band i happen to like alot called Thrice:

To what end do we
proceed so boldly
if all we are is
chemical reactions
and what world have you
so deftly sold me
if you reduce me
if I have no soul to touch

no heart to love
no evil to rise up above
no angels and no ghosts
no real victories to toast
if you believe that this is true
then I must ask
to what end do you proceed?

NO FIRE IN OUR EYES
NO STEEL IN OUR HEARTS
NO MAGIC IN OUR SONGS
ARE WE JUST EMPTY VESSELS

No fire in our eyes
No steel in our hearts
No magic in our songs

and you tell me…
I have no soul to touch
no heart to love
no evil to rise up above
no angels and no ghosts
no real victories to toast
if you believe that this is true
then I must ask
to what end do you proceed?

Did I not feel your love?
Did I not feel your hate?
And did my heart not beat
and did MY HEART NOT BREAK?!
And are these tears for naught
and are these worlds in vain
if this is all we are then what
HAVE WE TO GAIN!
What of all the art and books
music and poetry
What of all our memories
What of OUR HOPES AND DREAMS!
They hold no value then
We hold no faith but greed
So I must ask you
to what end do we proceed?

basically if you can honestly say that all you find in reality and in YOUR life is the purely physical, nothing more than that…no rationality, no higher ideals to strive for no real meaning, nothing to live for, nothing to die for than ill concede and say that you are right, there is no God. you may not know what to call it, but we both know that is not the case. there are so many facets to reality and so much going on in the world that go beyond mere physical description. and theology is a completely separate topic. im asking you though about what you see in the world around you. death and chaos would not be the COMPLETE description, so be honest with yourself.

there indeed are some truly noble ideas that once gotten into the heart and mind of a self replicator, that self replicator would fling themselves without thought to their very own deaths. among these noble ideas would be love, justice, compassion, mercy. these same immaterial ideas can make a 180 LB chunk(person or people) of matter move.

peace!

Okay clearly we have a different definition of “animal.” If you accept that the cosmos is rational, followed a set of immutable natural law, and both cosmic and organism evolution are facts, you must acknowledge that we are “animals.” As in, hairless primates(Unless you think 100,000 years ago god just magically poofed homo-sapiens into existance – which would destroy your entire argument of the cosmos being rational). You seem to be defining animal (correct me if I’m wrong) as a knee-jerk, base instincts organism. Kind of like a singular cell. However as I tried to point out before, many of our animal cousins do show “restraint.” For instance, my Dog used to rush me when I had food in my lap while watching tv. She would run full speed and try to eat it. Over time she learned to sit, and wait patiently, and maybe she’ll get a scrap. My dog also used to pee and poop whenever she had to. Now she knows to wait by the door until I notice and delicate outside. If I’m not home, she holds it. So she has LEARNED to override her base instincts – just like you and me. Granted she can’t do it on our level, but this really speaks nothing of consciousness, and is yet again, a basic elementary science lesson.

Animals do have ethics amongst their kind, jesus christ, why do you continue to talk about things as if you are savvy on the subject, when you’re frankly ignorant. I don’t discuss baseball, because I don’t know anything about it. Instead of being presumptuous, ask some basic questions like. “do animals have ethics.”

Just t go give an anecdote. When I was a child, frogs used to propagate to my swimming pool in the summer time. Oftentimes a few would fall in. Well as a kid I simply didn’t care, I’d just watch them (now I’d save them). Anyway one day a Mom and a child fall in. After swimming around the rim of the pool for an hour, and determining getting out was impossible – the Mom literally killed herself to save her child. She floated on the surface, and allowed the child to climb on her back (placing her breathing orifices under the surface). After several tries, the baby managed to climb, and leap out of the pool to safety, while the Mom died.

Bees when their next are attacked by an outside intruder, send out their “military.” This military acts like kamikazes. As you know when a bee stings you, it dies. Talk about loyalty to the nest.

Another basic example, name a species that DOESN’T look after its young. From Lions all the way down to ants, the parents go out and collect food for their young and in harsh times (as polar bears demonstrated in the documentary planet earth) will sacrafice themselves so their kids can eat. So if food is scarce due to a change in environment, the parent will starve in order for the children to eat the meal it acquired. Pretty human like. Why? We share common ancestors.

Granted these species don’t have “highway ethics” or “internet ethics,” but to say they aren’t ethical is ignorant.

Some articles on Primate ethics, and economics:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/monkey-economics-money_cz_df_money06_0214monkeys.html
There’s mountains of evidence in both fields, I’m just picking the first two google entries due to time constraints.

Now you’re either prevaricating, or suffer from amnesia

“basically if you can honestly say that all you find in reality and in YOUR life is the purely physical, nothing more than that…no rationality, no higher ideals to strive for no real meaning, nothing to live for, nothing to die for than ill concede and say that you are right, there is no God. .”

I don’t know anything beyond matter and energy. I’ve asked a thousand times for an example, you haven’t given one, and at this point I’m confident you can’t. I have however argued IN AGREEMENT with you that universe is rational. So I’m stunned that you now accuse me of the reverse. I’ve also gone over my higher ideals, basically my education. I set my goals, and I attempt to complete them. Those are my higher ideals. As far as having nothing to live for, that’s absurd, I have plenty. I don’t need a deity, to desire friendship, love, education, free times, etc. I don’t goto school for yahweh, I don’t live with my girlfriend of 5 years for yahweh, I don’t play pool on the weekend for yahweh, I don’t read books for yahweh, etc.

Now you’ve thrown out your entire thesis of what you were arguing for for the past months:

“you may not know what to call it, but we both know that is not the case. there are so many facets to reality and so much going on in the world that go beyond mere physical description.”

Yet earlier you said the universe was explainable via cause and effect events, amongst matter and energy, in a contained, rational order. Now you say otherwise. Haha, this debate is over

As far as love, justice, compassion and mercy. Do you really think I don’t exercise those because I’m atheist? I doubt it.

p.s. Just like my pet dog, I want you to imagine being born on earth W/out parents, friends, a school, family, books, etc, to “teach you.” I’d imagine without any form of education either, you’d be running on base instincts.