Og smite!
You call those answers??
“Google it yourself…”
“It’s in the bible, somewhere…”
“Many protestant sects probably suscribe to…”
Really, Conservian, you’re not very convincing in why anyone should believe in your god.
It’s like going to a job interview and saying “I obviously know how to do the job. It would be stupid not to hire me!”, and expecting the interviewer to respond with “Well, I see no need to check out your references since you told me you could do the job. I’ll just send the other 1000 applicants home without even talking to them- You’re hired!” :rolleyes:
I’m not that familiar with Og. Don’t know about Australia, but in America, Bob is widespread. Look in the yellow pages, he is everywhere and does everything. I’ll have you know that just in my small hometown, we have Bob’s appliance shop, Bob’s electric, Bob’s motorcycle shop, Bob’s maintenance shop, Bob’s sporting goods, he even practices law, and actually this is just a small sampling of what Bob can do for you. Go to any city in America, look in the yellow pages, and you’ll find Bob.
Say your motorcycle won’t start. Who is most likely to get that motorcycle going again? Jehovah, Og, Thor, Zeus or Bob? I know where to find Bob, I can’t find any of the others even listed. I can call Bob right up and talk to him. Trust me, I’ve dealt with Bob before on many things, he is quite good at what he does, but you must believe first and ask Bob to come into your heart. Or just call him, that works too, and he generally picks up. Name another god that even works on motorcycles? Aha, you can’t, can you?!
So, if you have no faith in what you believe, how do you hope to convince anyone else? You’ve just proven that you don’t believe or have any faith in what you are preaching.
That and you’ve proven that the ‘faith can move mountains’ in the bible is pure BS, since you claim to be one of the ‘few’ that will be saved.
Which backs up my assertion quite nicely - the assertion being that the NT is 99% bull.
No, You want to believe you’re immortal… at least with respect to some kind of afterlife. Additionally, you have some sort of need to divide people in to at least two camps: Those who believe as you do and will spend eternity in “bliss”, or, those who do not and will spend eternity in “torment”.
So why do you think you have the need to believe something like that? Does it make you feel better about yourself ? Would it be so bad if everyone ended up in “bliss”, despite their belief system (or lack there of)? Would you feel cheated in some way? Less special?
Once again, many holy books, many belief systems, may people convinced that they are right about their god(s). Can you make a compelling argument that isn’t self-referential and lays out why your god is the correct one?
Do you ever expect to? Okay, how 'bout a Winnebago instead? Does logic have any place in your religion, whatsoever?
I don’t have any doctrinal support for this, but I have a strong sense that Hephaestus, given a broken motorcycle to play with, would in very short order become very good at repairing it.
Sindri and Brokkr could probably do it too, but you’d end up with really short handlebars.
Hephaestus sounds impressive, as do the other gods. I’m sure all could swing a mean hammer, I’d actually hire them, but not sure if there is any evidence that they have continued on with their education. And by your own admission, you have no doctrinal support for this, either in holy writ or the sacred yellow pages. Besides, I’m not so sure you’re trying to pull a fast one on me. I found all of these gods listed under mythology. Not so with Bob. So what does that tell ya?
I didn’t get the short handlebars, until I found out two were dwarfs. 
I became quite familiar with Og one evening when I combined recreational substances rather poorly. Og manifested itself in the form of fever combined with chills. I think it was like what you get with malaria. Dally with Og, prepare to pay the freight.
I’ll take a run at the OP’s challenge.
bookmarks the thread
I have to use this opportunity to spread the word of Wee God Thusa, he who influences the changing of the toilet paper roll (notice the small ‘he’ - he knows he’s a small god). Wee God Thusa can barely make a flicker of light and a small whisper saying that he can ensure that you will never go into a bathroom, or equivalent, and find that there is no toilet paper. All you have to do is sing this little hymn of praise every time you take a shower.
You do not need to answer when he calls, although you’ll find that it’s a catchy little tune and forever after hearing his offer you’ll hear it as an earworm every time you’re near a shower or toilet. It might be best to sing along when showering if you wish to avoid that.
If you have not yet heard the small hymn of relief, then you are not yet among his chosen. I doubt that there’s anything you could do to attract his attention, in that case. He’s small enough that he does not hear all.
Oh, you should be warned that if you start worshipping, you’ll be required to change the roll each time it empties, or face his tiny wrath. And don’t try pretending that two squares, with one glued firmly to the roll, counts as not empty. He’s small, but he can count past four. Do this and you will be blessed. Marginally blessed. Within his area of influence.
If you’re unhappy about the size of his blessings, consider that he doesn’t care what you do beyond singing in the shower and changing the empty roll. He does not check on any of your other behavior. Good, evil, sin, and worshipping other gods are outside of his perview. You’re welcome to make your own accommodations there.
Wee God Thusa. Listen for his whisper. Unless you brought a good book, what else are you going to be doing?
OK, then, are you ready? I don’t do as much of the apostolic “convince other people to see it my way” as I used to, but since you invited…
First off, about “belief”: I would never, under any circumstances, ask or expect you to embrace a notion as Truth and henceforth cease to question it or doubt it. That itself is against my religion, both to hold any such notion or to attempt to ensconce any such Truth in front of other people. But if you are a rational person you select certain explanations as “most likely true” and you proceed on the assumption that they are even as you retain a willingness to question them and consider evidence that would throw those same notions out as invalid. That may sound a lot like the method of scientific theory formulation, and for good reason. But let’s not put too strong a positivist spin on it: there are things you probably decide to embrace as “most likely true” and proceed on the assumption that they ARE true despite no evidence, despite (for that matter) no possibility of there ever BEING any evidence. The most central example of that is the solipsistic question: do you believe that the sum total of everything you experience, which appears to be sensory input of actual real phenomena taking place outside your mind, and includes other people other physical objects and so forth, IS in fact real and not something your mind has invented? I know that I do. I consider it all to be real and I proceed on that basis. I do accept the logical possibility that it is NOT real. I have emotional as well as logical reasons for having chosen to embrace that truth as real: I would find it fundamentally impossible to live my life on the assumption that it is all NOT real (being unable to distance myself effectively from the “sense” of it as being quite compellingly real even if it were truly a iie of my mind) and I cannot conceive of any positive outcome of correctly embracing a belief that it is all NONreal if, in fact, it is just a product of my mind.
Second, about “God”: you said I get to convince you that you should believe in MY God. Hence you don’t get to define what that God is, or is like; I do. You could still, I suppose, say to me “Dude, you’re not using the word the way anyone else ever uses it, so your post doesn’t count”, but I might debate with you on whether my use of it is entirely peculiar or if it does in fact have historical precedent woven in among the various religious traditions present on this planet. MINE is not an “entity”, by which I mean a person-like being. Not only not a semi-translucent human-shaped male bearded diety who lives “up there in the sky” (an easy straw man or straw god to point do and dismiss) but also not anything that can be said to exist as a conscious identity that occupies a separate existence. Not only not on the physical plane of existence wherein one would expect to be able to measure it or weigh it or verify its presence via its matter or energy properties (another easy straw god) but even on the metaphysical or spiritual or psychic plane: no entity with an identity occupying a separate existence. But also not an impersonal “force” lacking any consciousness. If that sounds paradoxical or self-contradictory, GOOD, because it is silly to adhere to a complex notion when a simpler one would do, and the notion of God as I entertain it addresses this apparently paradoxical space.
I will now throw what’s going to seem a complete non-sequitur at you. (It’s not, I’ll link it up shortly). Do you believe volition, or intentionality — the state of doing something consciously and on purpose — exists? I would use the term “free will” except that there’s a huge body of literature and argumentation and just because I mean volition when I say “free will” doesn’t mean I’d be using the term as it has been used in all those arguments and I don’t want to be embedded in the muck of what others have said about it any more than I want to be bound to other folks’ notions of God when I speak to you of God. But I’ll juxtapose it to a situation in which the entire universe does not exist as a consequence of anything that any consciousness did “on purpose”, and within that universe nothing occurs or has ever occurred “on purpose” but rather as no more than the mechanical consequences of prior material states and their inertia and how they play out over some increment of time. Just as I should be free of other folks defining “my God”, I will avoid defining atheism for anyone but myself, but to me, atheism is the belief that there was no deliberate “on purpose” impetus involved in the causation of the universe as a whole, nor of any subevent or occurrence that has transpired since the beginning of time. Atheism, in other words, says that nothing has ever been done on purpose by anyone or anything.
To me (if not necessarily to you) that is a possibility on the same shelf as solipsism: I believe otherwise but I cannot prove otherwise, nor is it remotely possible to ever know anything that would enable me to know otherwise. Nor can any evidence ever exist to prove the alternative. Just as one cannot know that the entirety of what one has experienced is NOT a figment of one’s own imagination, one cannot know that one’s thoughts and sense of agency are NOT the electrochemical consequences of prior events and nothing more, and that the experience of one as a volitional agent making choices and creating the future therefore an illusion. BUT there is no gain to be made from attempting to proceed on the assumption that one lacks volition and that no purpose or intentionality for anything has ever existed (the logical reason for choosing the alternative belief) and furthermore I cannot do it (if volution is an illusion it is an illusion so inescapably omnipresent that it is flat-out impossible to proceed in my daily life embracing the belief that I do not in fact have the ability to choose or deliberate or otherwise do things on purpose).
Yet the arguments in favor of causal determinism are compelling. None of us exist in a vacuum and the argument goes that we, and our choices, are “caused” by our context, by our environment, if not in broad coarse dual-option ways then in complex infinitely-variant fine responsivenesses. So if there exists volition or purpose or intentionality, where does it inher?
Obviously (to me, and historically & most famously to Descartes), in the same place as my consciousness. All the arguments favoring causal determinism as it applies to external behavior apply with equal validity to internal states, to the thoughts that one has at any given time. My individual consciousness may be an illusion.
But if it is an illusion it has to be an illusion to that which is experiencing the illusion. It may well be that the individual I think I am is not who I actually am but that doesn’t mean I have no consciousness.
So, finally, to God: God is a sense of self, and I have experienced myself as such — not that I, the individual, am God, but that one possible and valid answer to the question “who am I” is not the individual-self answer that one would normally give, nor the plural-self answer (“We are…”) that people might sometimes give, but an all-encompassing one. This self has no external context and it has no prior cause and there was no time before it. It has been called “universe”. It has also been understood and contemplated and given, among others, the name of “God”.
I would not (quite, specifically) say “the universe is conscious”; that’s not so much incorrect as inadequate. The universe is something of which “consciousness” is a limited subcategory or a limited example. But it’s the closest approximation I can use at the moment. Intentionality and purpose and volition does exist, embodies in the universe as a whole. The universe is “here on purpose”, if you will.
I’ve experienced this sense-of-identity in the most traditional orthodox established-religion fashion: I have prayed and felt the presence of God and been aware of myself as one with God, of God as my own sense of identity, myself as I am as an individual immersed within it, and known it emotionally to be real while at the same time seeing intellectually that it works as an explanatory model of life as I have experienced it.
I believe it, not with the closemindedness of one who will not entertain the possibility of being wrong, but because it continues to be the best model I have encountered so far.
I find those who espouse a belief in causal determinism and the lack of volition / agency / etc to be internally inconsistent, as they seem no more able to leverage a stated belief in their own lack of choice and intentionality into a moment-to-moment enlightened behavioral pattern than I would be able to; instead, as expected, they behave as choosing people believing themselves to be acting on purpose and they interact with others, projecting responsibility and accountability onto them as if they consider those people also to be acting of their own volition. Perhaps they wryly acknowledge that they are incapable of doing otherwise but continue to believe no volition exists anywhere (this DOES have its own paradoxical consistency, does it not?), but if that is the case they would appear to be not so much atheists as people who believe they should be atheists if only they had the internal freedom to do so. I fail to see the advantage and I find the other conclusion compellingly accurate and correct for the above-described reasons.
Response to AHunter3 which I don’t have time to fully quote and edit. So, chunks
You’ve solved this dilemma yourself. By calling it “most likely true” the evidence we have for it, being sensory input and unexpectedness, is more than enough to confirm this provisional belief. 100% true is another matter.
I’m not sure I recall any atheists doing this. We mostly ask people to define God, and perhaps say this or that type of god is impossible if theists are coy about giving a definition. You yourself define God very vaguely, and mostly by what it isn’t. This God seems to have spoken to you in a sense, but besides that what exactly are you praying to?
Atheism says no such thing. Atheism is just about God - we could be controlled by godless bundles of energy with purpose, and still live in a godless world. People in a world with an omniscient god are just as purposeless, since they are puppets destined to do what god has foreseen an eternity ago.
And what does purpose mean, anyhow? We are clearly influenced by internal state, setting up a kind of internal feedback loop. Is that free will? We are influenced by choices we make that lead to unanticipated consequences. Is that free will? And we are clearly not living in a deterministic universe. So this is hardly an argument for god.
Consciousness, what ever it means, is a property of a miniscule subset of the matter that makes up the universe. Isn’t a bit self-important for us few conscious entities to thing the universe is just like us in a way?
My rather strong sense of self-identity doesn’t depend on God in any way. We are clearly “one with the universe” being a part of the universe and yet not be in any way spiritually one with anything.
Or perhaps they can acknowledge that we are all programmed to act as if we have volition, even if we do not. Or we may decide that since the influences on us are too complex to compute, we act as if there are none since we would not be able to act at all otherwise. And we all know that we are limited in our range of actions. People with phobias are going to be limited in their actions without lots of work, and people are who not sociopaths are not going to be able to shoot up a classroom.
I don’t understand about being atheists due to internal freedom. For me it was purely an intellectual exercise - the religion I was taught as a kid, while a positive experience, was just not true, and I’ve seen no real evidence that any other religion is either. The best I’ve seen is deism, which is wish-fulfillment, the wish being that there is a purpose for all this, and something like yours, which you need to work on explaining a bit more.
AHunter3, could you just as well call universe just that, and leave God out of it? I’ve re-read some parts of your post more times than I care to admit, and still have a problem trying to figure out what you’re trying to convey, which probably is more my problem than yours, evidently Voyager followed it rather well without necessarily agreeing to some of the parts he was responding to. But could you clarify if it is your position that God does have some kind of sentience?
All I want to know is how Wee God Thusa rolls, over or under?
The Wee God Thusa is obviously the cunning force of darkness that compels those in his evil thrall to go against the firm edict of the Almighty Bog, tricking fools into feeding the roll across the top. Bastard.
WGT does not care. However, he will not explicitly state that as he finds some small amusement in the idea that even in the worship of such a small deity, humans manage to create schisms.
Thusa will also not protect you from dogs, cats, or small children who unroll the whole roll. If it’s still there, to his mind, it counts, even if it’s in a pile on the floor. I’ve been trying to convince him to protect the sacred spiral cylinder from my dog, who chews on the side of the roll rather than unrolling it. Unfortunately, she howls when washed, which leads me to suspect that she’s made her own deal.
for shizzle.
I think that sentience exists. And I think sentience is irreconcilable with the lack of volition.
I arrive at the conclusion that it’s meaningful to call that sentience “God” by realizing where the sentience is located, and understanding it to be an attribute of the whole, of the universe.
If that sounds like a weasely non-answer, well… I guess it’s not too much of an oversimplification to just say “yeah, God, aka the Universe, is sentient”.
(Just understand that God is nevertheless not an entity separate from the universe)
Not sure just what you are trying to say here. “Sentience” is the combination of self-awareness (essentially the survival instinct) and abstract reason (the ability to understand the self-entity). Volition is the ability to act on needs and desires, which is common to all beings that have the survival instinct (and the capability to take action). Nearly all “volition” is responsive: action taken to address needs or deal with external stimuli (events). This issue has been hashed out in numerous threads on the subject of “free will”.
A deity is typically posited as being the causa prima: the thing which exists/acts without a prior cause. One might ask why did god create the heavens and the earth? Because it was bored? Well, that would not work, because it would ascribe a cause to the initial act of creation and an imperfection in the deity (a tendency toward boredom, or some other reason for creating everything). “Why”, I guess, is ultimately not a valid question for the activities of the divine.
But “why” is a perfectly valid question for the things we do. There is some sort of prior cause for us and for our actions, even if we do not understand it. In other words, the very premise of volition is on pretty shaky ground unless you accept that it is extremely rarely, if ever, fully internalized.