(December 26, 2015 at 2:35 am)Stimbo Wrote: Got a citation for that?

And a response to my second question?

No, just playing loose with the terms for some Christmas levity.

(December 26, 2015 at 2:17 am)Stimbo Wrote:

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What the hell is "Atheistism"?

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And how the flying fox can thought precede a brain?

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(I'm guessing that's what you mean.)

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The first brain required thinking to pre-exist.

Have you informed anyone of this breakthrough of yours?

(December 26, 2015 at 4:12 am)Rhythm Wrote: Have you informed anyone of this breakthrough of yours?

So far, God only knows...

(December 26, 2015 at 4:02 am)snowtracks Wrote:

(December 26, 2015 at 2:17 am)Stimbo Wrote:

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What the hell is "Atheistism"?

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And how the flying fox can thought precede a brain?

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(I'm guessing that's what you mean.)

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The first brain required thinking to pre-exist.

No, restating the assertion is not the same as answering the question. I asked how it can precede a brain.

In fact, you've hurt your argument far worse than merely restating the point. You're begging the question, presupposing the conclusion in order to make the argument appear to work. "The first brain requiredbe thinking to be pre-existent, therefore thought preceded the first brain." You still need to demonstrate that.

God is usually carefully defined so that there can never be any evidence, for or against.

An unfalsifiable, unnecessary and useless assumption that doesn't explain anything. A mental pacifier (dummy in UK speak).

(December 26, 2015 at 8:12 am)Stimbo Wrote:

(December 26, 2015 at 4:02 am)snowtracks Wrote: The first brain required thinking to pre-exist.

No, restating the assertion is not the same as answering the question. I asked how it can precede a brain.

In fact, you've hurt your argument far worse than merely restating the point. You're begging the question, presupposing the conclusion in order to make the argument appear to work. "The first brain requiredbe thinking to be pre-existent, therefore thought preceded the first brain." You still need to demonstrate that.

How? Not a problem.  
Created from a far superior mind. Any scientific proof? None. However, it’s inference to the best explanation. Tracing an effect back to the cause (back to 'Causal Adequacy’ ) is what scientists often do to explain the origin of an event or structuring from the past; ‘how’ they do this is by employing Abductive Reasoning*. However modern science adheres to the principle of Methodology Naturalism; therefore, alternative causes are never considered…so in that case, the best they can do is propose that the human mind originated from non-thinking material. It did this without even have a target goal in place, and when the pathway in the evolutional up-stage resulted in a dead-end, the organism that was being developed kept functioning while the new organism was being experimented for the next stage, when that didn’t work, the original old organism was informed that another pathway would have to be considered. This went on for trillions of times until it inched closer to next state to that undefined target. The mechanism for trashing dead-ending pathways and communicating to the organism a new pathway is required is not understood but there’s an ’appeal to the future’ for a naturalistic explanation. The Superior mind doesn’t require a beginning --- The Universe’s energy, matter, space, and TIME began 13.77 bya. Beginnings are only required when there is TIME. The superior mind explantions also meets the 'Causal Adequacy’ requirement. Mind to mind is near infinity magnitude above a non-mind to mind explanation just by itself.

  *  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning

(January 3, 2016 at 12:28 am)snowtracks Wrote: Created from a far superior mind.

What need does a being which never evolved from a natural animal have for a mind?

Natural animals have organs which provide perceptual input of their environment. This only does them any good if they also have cognitive capacities to make use of that input. In multi-cellular creatures of any complexity, those capacities are manifest in brains. And no mind, has ever been encountered which wasn't associated with a brain.

So why would a being that always was .. even when nothing else was .. have any need for a mind? It didn't arise in answer to any need. So why?

How long was God in the dark before he realized that he was in the empty darkness all by his lonesome?

The bible is a little sketchy on his backstory.

Billions of years I suppose. But then he's outside of time, whatever that means. (It means he's running the simulation, which would still presumably take some amount of time in his reality, even if it appears to pass much more slowly here.)