RE: God as the Centre of Everything
February 6, 2013 at 5:33 pm
(This post was last modified: February 6, 2013 at 5:42 pm by Captain Scarlet.)
I never said god = consciousness, just that theism is committed to god as a disembodied consciousness. God may or may not have other attributes which in turn aggregate up to form the whole godhead. But even in this scenario god is incorporeal and consciousness. Thus your objection fails.
I am not arguing that our minds can control our bodies. This isn't a point about theory of mind, dualism, monism etc. What you are describing are physical processes that are driven by voluntary or involuntary means. None of which is remarkable unless you subscribe to substance dualism. It is in our nature. My point is more fundamental than that. A more appropriate example of primacy of consciousness is not moving a limb, but regrowing one after amputation by wiling it so, or changing an arm to a pectoral fin by thought.
If you think that a=\=a, or that 'a consciousness is not a consciousness', then you are either positing a self refuting proposition, or arguing that god has a special get out of jail free card...just because. ....? You are engaging in special pleading for the god concept.
But to compound the problem for your position you are exempting god because the proposed entity is only realized in a proposed supernatural realm. 2
problems here: firstly where does the consciousness of xtians go when they die, one can suppose on the terms presented by xtian theism only to the supernatural realm. It would therefore seem rather mundane and also necessary that consciousness slips out of nature and is re-instantiated in supernature in the same manner and with consummate ease. To give a trivial illustration, you had better hope that St Peter is talking to 'you' at the gates and not your avatar. So you have to do better than that to illustrate why we are not justified in thinking that god has a consciousness just like the creations made in said entities image. Secondly if you try to argue that 'god is just different....so there', xtian theism has to revisit it's concept of god. A disembodied consciousness that really isn't a consciousness as we know it, is a stolen concept ie supernature borrowing from nature and then building an edifice upon that borrowed conceptual foundation and asking us to accept it. Theism cant have their immaterial dung cake and not eat it
I am not arguing that our minds can control our bodies. This isn't a point about theory of mind, dualism, monism etc. What you are describing are physical processes that are driven by voluntary or involuntary means. None of which is remarkable unless you subscribe to substance dualism. It is in our nature. My point is more fundamental than that. A more appropriate example of primacy of consciousness is not moving a limb, but regrowing one after amputation by wiling it so, or changing an arm to a pectoral fin by thought.
If you think that a=\=a, or that 'a consciousness is not a consciousness', then you are either positing a self refuting proposition, or arguing that god has a special get out of jail free card...just because. ....? You are engaging in special pleading for the god concept.
But to compound the problem for your position you are exempting god because the proposed entity is only realized in a proposed supernatural realm. 2
problems here: firstly where does the consciousness of xtians go when they die, one can suppose on the terms presented by xtian theism only to the supernatural realm. It would therefore seem rather mundane and also necessary that consciousness slips out of nature and is re-instantiated in supernature in the same manner and with consummate ease. To give a trivial illustration, you had better hope that St Peter is talking to 'you' at the gates and not your avatar. So you have to do better than that to illustrate why we are not justified in thinking that god has a consciousness just like the creations made in said entities image. Secondly if you try to argue that 'god is just different....so there', xtian theism has to revisit it's concept of god. A disembodied consciousness that really isn't a consciousness as we know it, is a stolen concept ie supernature borrowing from nature and then building an edifice upon that borrowed conceptual foundation and asking us to accept it. Theism cant have their immaterial dung cake and not eat it
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
