(Yesterday at 9:59 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(Yesterday at 9:15 pm)Jal Wrote: Why are we obligated to God? Not sure I can be fully candid here, due to forum rules. I'll try to tread lightly.

General Revelation (Rom 1:18 to 32) suggests that God has stamped every conscience with a primordial awareness, basically at least a subsconscious level of awareness, that He exists. Hence we all have an obligation to try to seek out this particular picture/vision of God, faint as it may be.  (It's like you THOUGHT you heard your Dad calling your name, you're not sure, but you should probably try to go check, in case he needs your help).

The Arminian school of Christian thinkers claims that anyone CAN seek out this God.
The Calvinist school says, "Man is too corrupt since Adam, he will live in denial about this God unless the Holy Spirit reaches out to soften his heart".

Even the Arminians recognize that Christians should ask the Holy Spirit to invade that guy's life. 

While I reject most Calvinist points, but on this point I 'm not sure where to stand. It's one of the many issues where the Bible seems unclear.

In either case, you have an obligation to God imprinted upon your conscience, according to Rom 1:18 to 32.

You realize that none of that is your own thinking.  Someone else told you these things.  And for whatever reason, emotional attachment to a guardian, a powerful experience, or a passing fancy, you chose to believe them.   You're following a trajectory, and the evidence I suspect will show that, despite your talk of free will, you haven't essentially deviated significantly from that trajectory.  In what way is your will free then?

So you think I operate on a kind of blind faith - that's what makes me a Christian? 

Actually Protestant epistemology, at least for salvation, is a tautology. As such, you can no more discredit it than you can impugn the notion that a square has 4 sides.

So here's our salvation epistemology:  We attest to an experience called the "Inward Witness of the Holy Spirit" - and it evidently happens even to people who have not heard of such terms. I think it happened to me because a whole team of Christians were praying for me, for several months, back when I was still an agnostic in college.

The nature of the experience is that it persuades you, invincibly, that Jesus is Lord. You still might could reject Him out of rebellion, but you cannot un-believe the gospel. You cannot dismiss it in good conscience. The tautology, then, is something like this:

"I should believe in religion-X only when I find it impossible to un-believe in religion-X"

Funny how the most outspoken critics of Christian belief (such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchins), neglect to mention this tautology even though the Inward Witness has been a cornerstone of evangelical theology for the last 500 years.

(Yesterday at 10:21 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 9:59 pm)Angrboda Wrote: You realize that none of that is your own thinking.  Someone else told you these things.  And for whatever reason, emotional attachment to a guardian, a powerful experience, or a passing fancy, you chose to believe them.   You're following a trajectory, and the evidence I suspect will show that, despite your talk of free will, you haven't essentially deviated significantly from that trajectory.  In what way is your will free then?

So you think I operate on a kind of blind faith - that's what makes me a Christian? 

Actually Protestant epistemology, at least for salvation, is a tautology. As such, you can no more discredit it than you can impugn the notion that a square has 4 sides.

So here's our salvation epistemology:  We attest to an experience called the "Inward Witness of the Holy Spirit" - and it evidently happens even to people who have not heard of such terms. I think it happened to me because a whole team of Christians were praying for me, for several months, back when I was still an agnostic in college.

The nature of the experience is that it persuades you, invincibly, that Jesus is Lord. You still might could reject Him out of rebellion, but you cannot un-believe the gospel. You cannot dismiss it in good conscience. The tautology, then, is something like this:

"I should believe in religion-X only when I find it impossible to un-believe in religion-X"

Funny how the most outspoken critics of Christian belief (such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchins), neglect to mention this tautology even though the Inward Witness has been a cornerstone of evangelical theology for the last 500 years.

I believe I mentioned a powerful experience. I'm not accusing you of blind faith. Faith is far too complicated for such a simple characterization. But I do believe in trajectories. Christians by and large remain in the faith. Republicans, likewise, mostly remain in their faith. It's not always easy to see in hindsight what put us on the path we're on, but for most significant changes in a person's life, the change is precipitated by an event. If I may, I suggest the two events in your life are having been raised in a culture filled with Protestantism and your powerful experience. These events shaped who you are. We exercise our will in the confines that life sets up for us. Few precipitating events? Few significant breaks from the status quo. I suspect your early thinking about panpsychism was one such event. For whatever reason, your thoughts on the matter put you on a path you haven't left in 35 years. These are simple truths. People are shaped by their environment. You were shaped by your environment, internal and external. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to realize this. The only important question in psychology is how much isn't shaped by the environment? How much is genetic? How much epigenetic? I'm sure there are some who study the fickle will. But it's a minor note in a grander symphony. And the score that orchestra is playing is determinism.

The Personal Nature of the Holy Spirit: The theological premise of an inward witness relies heavily on the Holy Spirit acting as a personal guide. According to the 2025 State of Theology survey by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research, there is notable doctrinal fragmentation regarding this concept: 47% of evangelicals firmly view the Holy Spirit as a personal being, while 53% abstractly define the Spirit as "a force but not a personal being".

(Yesterday at 9:57 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 9:53 pm)Ravenshire Wrote: No, I'm saying you're a lunatic. Just because you use their words doesn't mean you speak their language.

Like for example when you faulted me for insinuating (neglible) sentience of quarks? That kind of language from me are you objecting to? Quick google on pansychism:

"Degrees of Mind:Proponents suggest that fundamental particles like electrons or quarks have a simple, primitive form of experience. When these particles combine into complex structures like human brains, they form rich, unified streams of conscious thought".

Funny I seem to recall similar language used somewhere on this thread. Oh right that was me.

Well, to be honest, I was thinking more of your abuses of the sciences. As to your example above, experiences do not equal sentience. A rock, when dropped experiences gravitational attraction, making it fall. It experiences g-forces upon impact with the ground, sometimes sufficient to fragment it. Neither of those experiences lead to rocks having sentience. You seem to be twisting and misrepresenting their words as much as you twist and misrepresent the words of other posters, as you have done to my posts.

Your ignorant, disingenuous, and just plain dumb.

(Yesterday at 10:50 pm)Angrboda Wrote: The Personal Nature of the Holy Spirit: The theological premise of an inward witness relies heavily on the Holy Spirit acting as a personal guide. According to the 2025 State of Theology survey by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research, there is notable doctrinal fragmentation regarding this concept: 47% of evangelicals firmly view the Holy Spirit as a personal being, while 53% abstractly define the Spirit as "a force but not a personal being".

It doesn't look like ChatGPT finds you a reliable witness.  It goes on to say that different schools within evangelical Christianity differ on the subject of direct personal guidance by the holy spirit or whatever.   It doesn't look to be as you say.

Personal guide? Are we talking about salvation? Or sanctification?
Also I was referring mostly to theologians, not to regular pew members.

(Yesterday at 10:58 pm)Ravenshire Wrote:

(Yesterday at 9:57 pm)Jal Wrote: Like for example when you faulted me for insinuating (neglible) sentience of quarks? That kind of language from me are you objecting to? Quick google on pansychism:

"Degrees of Mind:Proponents suggest that fundamental particles like electrons or quarks have a simple, primitive form of experience. When these particles combine into complex structures like human brains, they form rich, unified streams of conscious thought".

Funny I seem to recall similar language used somewhere on this thread. Oh right that was me.

Well, to be honest, I was thinking more of your abuses of the sciences. As to your example above, experiences do not equal sentience. A rock, when dropped experiences gravitational attraction, making it fall. It experiences g-forces upon impact with the ground, sometimes sufficient to fragment it. Neither of those experiences lead to rocks having sentience. You seem to be twisting and misrepresenting their words as much as you twist and misrepresent the words of other posters, as you have done to my posts.

Your ignorant, disingenuous, and just plain dumb.

Where did I say that experience (such as a rock falling) equal sentience? Maybe I used some loose language somewhere and you read too  much into it?

(Yesterday at 11:06 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 10:58 pm)Ravenshire Wrote: Well, to be honest, I was thinking more of your abuses of the sciences. As to your example above, experiences do not equal sentience. A rock, when dropped experiences gravitational attraction, making it fall. It experiences g-forces upon impact with the ground, sometimes sufficient to fragment it. Neither of those experiences lead to rocks having sentience. You seem to be twisting and misrepresenting their words as much as you twist and misrepresent the words of other posters, as you have done to my posts.

Your ignorant, disingenuous, and just plain dumb.

Where did I say that experience (such as a rock falling) equal sentience? Maybe I used some loose language somewhere and you read too  much into it?

Holy fuck, but you're thick!

From your post: "Degrees of Mind:Proponents suggest that fundamental particles like electrons or quarks have a simple, primitive form of experience."

They said experience, you said sentience. They're two different things, but you conflated them. Get it yet, or am I not using enough crayon and construction paper to spell it out for you?

(Yesterday at 11:15 pm)Ravenshire Wrote:

(Yesterday at 11:06 pm)Jal Wrote: Where did I say that experience (such as a rock falling) equal sentience? Maybe I used some loose language somewhere and you read too  much into it?

Holy fuck, but you're thick!

From your post: "Degrees of Mind:Proponents suggest that fundamental particles like electrons or quarks have a simple, primitive form of experience."

They said experience, you said sentience. They're two different things, but you conflated them. Get it yet, or am I not using enough crayon and construction paper to spell it out for you?

It's just I'm using different terms for the sliding scale of Degrees of Mind.   They said, "primitive form of experience", whereas I said "negligibly sentient". Another term I used on this thread was "degrees of consciousness."

Consider a zygote in a woman's womb. At what moment in its development is it properly described a sentient? This seems to be a hotly debated issue in abortion controversies.

I apologize for imperfect terminology, not sure what is best here. Please try a little harder to read between the lines.

(Yesterday at 11:51 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 11:15 pm)Ravenshire Wrote: Holy fuck, but you're thick!

From your post: "Degrees of Mind:Proponents suggest that fundamental particles like electrons or quarks have a simple, primitive form of experience."

They said experience, you said sentience. They're two different things, but you conflated them. Get it yet, or am I not using enough crayon and construction paper to spell it out for you?

It's just I'm using different terms for the sliding scale of Degrees of Mind.   They said, "primitive form of experience", whereas I said "negligibly sentient". Another term I used on this thread was "degrees of consciousness."

Consider a zygote in a woman's womb. At what moment in its development is it properly described a sentient? This seems to be a hotly debated issue in abortion controversies.

I apologize for imperfect terminology, not sure what is best here. Please try a little harder to read between the lines.

Alternatively, you could try a little harder to use correct words in the accepted manner. You put me in mind of a stand-up comic who blames the audience for not laughing at his jokes.

Boru

(Yesterday at 11:01 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 10:50 pm)Angrboda Wrote: The Personal Nature of the Holy Spirit: The theological premise of an inward witness relies heavily on the Holy Spirit acting as a personal guide. According to the 2025 State of Theology survey by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research, there is notable doctrinal fragmentation regarding this concept: 47% of evangelicals firmly view the Holy Spirit as a personal being, while 53% abstractly define the Spirit as "a force but not a personal being".

It doesn't look like ChatGPT finds you a reliable witness.  It goes on to say that different schools within evangelical Christianity differ on the subject of direct personal guidance by the holy spirit or whatever.   It doesn't look to be as you say.

Personal guide? Are we talking about salvation? Or sanctification?
Also I was referring mostly to theologians, not to regular pew members.

No need to backtrack; you were right, inward witness is a core part of evangelical Christianity. It's an atrocious epistemological thing, but whatever. Not my shit show.

If you care to do so, look up the Stoic's concept of phantasia katalepsis. Very similar in some ways.

An interesting tidbit of history, it was actually the Muslims who first thought of occasionalist doctrines that God moves everything.