Posts by Zathrus2

. said:

Why in God's name should we trust a genetic mutant's opinion on ANYTHING spiritual.

TIM-MAY!
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. said:

No, I'm not. It ought to be obvious that I'm not.

Firing synapses and dompamine may be observed by someone other than the person experiencing pleasure. They are not the subjective experience of pleasure.

Even if they cause the subjective experience of pleasure, they are not synonymous with the experience of pleasure.

You knuckleheads aren't going to answer the question. Hell, you two can't even understand it.

This is getting to be too boring.

stAnselm said:

Shiny New Kid is now several hours closer to his date with eternity and he has done nothing to advance his case or change teh society he lives in.

Time to get on your hands and knees and admit your errors and submit to the Church of Rome.

Shiny New Kid said:

You're asking for how we can know whether there is any such thing as an objective experience. Or is it all subjective.

This is the essence of Western Philosophy for 3000 years.

We know from science that there is no such thing as an Objective Experience. If we move some nerves around sugar tastes green. That it is pretty much the easy part.

The more complicated part is whether Dr. Johnson was right when he replied to a solipsist, "I refute it thus" and kicked a rock.

If something exists outside ourselves and "kicks back" in a consistent way then there is a reality outside of our own brains. (There's a lot of philosophy and logic that has brought us to this point and its still not completely decided)

Now when it comes to things like pleasure, or any emotion really, we know these occur in the very primitive parts of the brain. Obviously, the earliest animals needed to feel pleasure when eating and mating and feel fear when facing a predator.

Emotions are an electrochemical event. The fact we associate that particular electrochemical burst with a certain feeling and put a label on that feeling makes no difference.

As Shakespeare said, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

The fact that we assign the label pleasure to a particular kind of electrochemical event and that our brains are evolved to seek out more of it is not evidence of God or spirituality

. said:

I've read several of your responses. If you really don't understand my question -- if you don't even see what I'm asking -- you're not going to be able to answer it.

Of course, nobody can answer it.

Q: What exactly is the subjective experience of "pleasure"?

A: Dopamine!
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Go away.

. said:

Why do discussions about god always end up about the afro-asiatic god?

Why do the atheists always turn the discussion into a discussion about some particular afro-asiatic god?

. said:

No, dopamine is something objective, something you observe in the object. I'm asking about the subject's subjective experience, the experience of "pleasure".

Pleasure isn't dopamine. Even if dopamine causes pleasure, the subjective experience of pleasure isn't dopamine.

Nobody can explain the subjective experience of pleasure.

. said:

Wonder where the experience "pleasure" comes from. I suppose you could observe firing synapses, but where does the subjective experience of "pleasure" come from?

And what is the subjective experience, exactly? It's obviously something beyond the objective firing of synapses.

FluffyKitten said:

No it doesn't sidestep it. Even though God already knows what our free choices will be in the future, our choices are still ours and are still free. If our free choices change how the future will be, God already knows that and has known it for all eternity.

I'm sorry if this is a little difficult to grasp

. said:

he is an underachiever at best

Good one!

. said:

when my new born baby died the first thing i thought about was that god is great

. said:

Omnicience implies the ability to be all knowing and all seeing.

Free will implies the ability to make independent choices.


If God already knows what wer are going to do before we do it, then free will is an illusion.

If true free will exists, then God cannot know what we are going to do. Therefore, he is not omniscient.

Both conditions simply cannot co-exist.

Sorry, but you are :mitten:

FluffyKitten said:

First of all, God exists in eternity. There is no past, present, or future for him. For you to say that God won't know something because of some future free will choice fails to recognize this. You want some make some argument based on an erroneous concept of God.

Borrowing some shit from St. Thomas here:

"God beholds all things in one comprehensive act.

Some causes are not determined ad unum, but are free to choose between the effects which they are capable of producing. Thus things happen contingently as well as of necessity, for God has given to different things different ways of acting, and His concurrence is given accordingly. Yet all things, whether due to necessary causes or to the free choice of man, are foreseen by God and preordained in accordance with His all-embracing purpose. Hence Providence is at once universal, immediate, efficacious, and without violence: universal, because all things are subject to it; immediate, in that though God acts through secondary causes, yet all alike postulate Divine concurrence and receive their powers of operation from Him; efficacious, in that all things minister to God's final purpose, a purpose which cannot be frustrated; without violence (suavis), because it violates no natural law, but rather effects its purpose through these laws.

. said:

Why didn't he just create people who already understood it?

We're all struggling, fighting and dying for his entertainment?

FluffyKitten said:

What truth is it that I'm rejecting? That there is no God? If there is no God, then there is no truth to reject in the first place. Science, once the last experiment has been conducted, can only offer one thing - death. Yet every human being yearns for and intuitively senses that there is something more that what our senses or our instruments can discover.

. said:

I don't get the evolutionists vs the creationists argument. We have seen that in order for there to be growth, things need to be difficult. We have to work at overcoming hardship to progress to a better state. So if that's the case why WOULDN'T a creator deity make that the path we had to follow, or even go one better and include ALL possible outcomes in a set zone or area of time/existence. I believe we were created by a higher power, to evolve and grow within the great machine to understand it by evolving through it.

. said:

You've never knowingly sinned in your life?

Or you have, and you accept you're going to Hell?

FluffyKitten said:

People have an obligation to accept the truth when it is offered to them and conform their lives accordingly. If they don't, there are consequences.

Humanity as a whole operates under this basic principle

FluffyKitten said:

Evolved from what...you are curious and take pleasure in things that produce no evolutionary advantage. In fact, people are curious and take pleasure in things that are decidely disadvantageous. We evolved that too? On which gene?

FluffyKitten said:

Liberal? No, it's what the Bible says,

John 15:22

"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin."

So for those of us who have been told the Gospel, there's no excuse. But plenty of people are invincibly ignorant through no fault of their own; they weren't told, they were told incorrectly, etc...for these people, they MAY be saved. These people will be judged also, but not on the same basis as those who have heard the gospel. It's a matter of justice, Bible says as much...

Ultimately God can save whoever he wants however he wants. What we are concerned with is what theologians would call the "ordinary" way to salvation.

And this is not "my" teaching, but the teaching of the Catholic Church, that teaches in Christ's name. So it's not a matter of whether or not "I" am right or wrong.

FluffyKitten said:

If Hawking is such a brilliant scientist, why would he say the product of his intellect is all just the result of physical processes and not his mind?

. said:

OK, explain George Anderson. Explain the cases of "past lives".

FluffyKitten said:

Zathrus2 said:

Yes, people reject God all the time. That's because they evolved independently of any "supreme being".

Really if you're gonna keep pumping in non-sequitors like this, why bother?

God created people with free-will.

. said:

Why do you say this?

FluffyKitten said:

1. Except people reject God all the time. Your argument does not fit actual human experience

2. Does not follow from erroneous 1.

3. If you were a deity creating ex nihilo, you could include the capabilty for free will and thought into the dog, if you wanted to. It's not the same thing as dog breeding.

Good try, B for effort