There is no "I" in "You"

[robvalue]

So you agree with me.

I didn't wave anything away, I was cautioning regarding always presuming there is an answer. You're assuming an awful lot about me already.

[quip]

So you agree with me.

I didn't wave anything away, I was cautioning regarding always presuming there is an answer. You're assuming an awful lot about me already.

Your answers simply reflect a bias...in turn, my answers reflect your approach. Apologies if I assumed too much.

[robvalue]

What bias? I made a general statement, which you decided meant something other than what I said. That's your bias.

Do you agree that asking why does not guarantee a coherent answer, or not?

I'm not saying I don't have biases, just that you're telling me what they are without knowing anything about me.

[Pat Mustard]

Pure chance.  And it's a sucky gene pool!  I certainly wouldn't have chosen it.  
You seem to be implying that there is such a thing as "fate" or "god's plan" or some such woo.  
I don't buy it.  If you have evidence for it, provide it.  Don't just hammer us with nonsense questions.

If I had evidence I wouldn't need the hammer...now would I?

Well this is refreshing, rather than the usual claptrap, we've a theist admit that he's got nothing other than his belief.

It's only nonsense to those attempting to sweep such under the rug.  Outa' sight, outa' mind?

---

But people are giving you answers and you're just saying "That's not what I'm looking for."  Well, describe exactly what you are looking for.

I'm not looking for anything...just posing some interesting questions, gauging responses.

Oh dear, now you've gone and thrown all that away, by demanding we accept your beliefs to be true, simply because you believe them. Could't keep away from the claptrap for more than five seconds.

I know why you set up this thread, you thought you had a knock down argument and as soon as we heard it we'd fall down in supplication hailing the Buddha as our true lord & master. When that failed to happen, you first tried to deny your purpose (well, I'm just askjng questions) and then got aggressive because we don't accept your unsupported beliefs. As the saying goes, I've got you taped.

[purplepurpose]

I guess its better to "masturbate" on "magical" questions then, for example, stay depressed.


Magical answer would be that ETERNAL God decided to make make a spark/mind, so that his "mmo server" is fun to watch.

And no wonder people try to stick with scientific answer...

[Aoi Magi]

Well I am me because of my choices and the social and environmental conditions I've been raised in. We have a lot of factors effecting us during our lifetime and the factors are so numerous that in total they are unique for each individual.

But from your questions I think you are making a mistake in thinking that we are more than our physical biological selves. You asked why someone is born to particular parents, but the thing is there is no 'someone' before they are born. Existence begins at birth. So the question shouldn't be why someone is born a certain way, rather it should simply be why someone is what they are.

I'm simply asking atheists what mundane factor(s) determined their particular experience of self in distinction to roughly six billion alternate, extant possibilities.

You honestly expect me list out an infinite number of factors like that? C'mon, just a basic combination of your parents, friends, relatives, and their interactions with you in any given moment makes that moment unique to you. Our lives are made up of countless such unique moments which makes us unique individuals.

[robvalue]

If someone's going to tell me what I mean by what I say, then they really don't need me for the conversation.

[The Grand Nudger]

I dunno maybe.

You don't know..maybe?  Is there something less than definitive about the statements I offered?  Can you conceptualize -any- way that I could have been determined to be me..prior to the decades of events that have made me, me...occurring..how I could have been determined to be who I am, prior...even..... to my very conception?

No, magic seems the knee-jerk proxy for atheist's misinterpretation.

"My magic isn't magical".  Okaaaaaay.  It's almost as if I've had this discussion before, many times, with many people who believe in disparate things. People who, like you, aren't satisfied until we arrive at a magic explanation.....but rebel against magic, just as soon as we arrive there.

I'm still wondering why the sky is hotdog and the grass is Steve, btw. I think that if you tried to answer either of those questions you might come to a realization about your own.

[quip]

I'm simply asking atheists what mundane factor(s) determined their particular experience of self in distinction to roughly six billion alternate, extant possibilities.

You honestly expect me list out an infinite number of factors like that? C'mon, just a basic combination of your parents, friends, relatives, and their interactions with you in any given moment makes that moment unique to you. Our lives are made up of countless such unique moments which makes us unique individuals.

No, I'm not...that's beside the point. Rather out of the roughly six billion permutations of what you just described above what multiplicity of unique factors came together to determine your particular self at this particular time in history? Could such not be contingent...if so, by what mundane factors?  If not.... how?

[The Grand Nudger]

You mean, other than the list of "mundane" factors already described..whose depths I'm certain we haven't fully plumbed?  

Who knows, you tell us, and perhaps elaborate upon the implication of "other-than-mundane" factors.  What might those be?  Stop asking the same question over and over until we arrive at fairies and just get on with it already, lol..... What should we be considering, in your estimation, that we have not?