Natural Selection Seems Insufficient

[awty]

I have a hard time hating imaginary beings, but that's just me.

Boru

Believe me, I get it.  My Dad became a born-again Christian when I was in high school. One day I asked him to drive me to school. In the car, he listened to some preacher on Christian radio. I was so disgusted that I could have killed for a pair of ear plugs.

Four years later, in college, it happened to me. I met the Lord. Seeing is believing. 

Somebody once insinuated that it might just be "my feelings."  This fails to distinguish sensations from random emotions. If someone punches you in the back (you never saw him), you can't dismiss it as, "Maybe was just my emotions." 

Or let's suppose you KNOW yourself to be delusional, but nonetheless you decide to drive a vehicle.  You see a couple of pedestrians up ahead. You're thinking, "Probably just a delusion." Is it okay to run them over? Chalk it up to a hallucination? No. Generally the rational thing to do, when confronted with sensations, is to respect them. This is especially true when your conscience is demanding it.

Had a hallucination in college...decided to live life based on that experience.

What a plan.

[Jal]

Sound reasoning. 

Here you will complain about being impervious to reason. Which is a misunderstanding. For most of us, not being prophets, the Inward Witness only tells us  a few general things, such as:
(1) Jesus is Lord and died for our sins
(2) The Bible is true.


This generality leaves PLENTY of room for discussion/ reasoning on specific topics, for example creation vs evolution.

(my bold)

Bullshit! You've demonstrated repeatedly that reasoning with you doesn't work. You've even stated there are no arguments that would change your mind. Now you're just lying.

I developed a theology of panpsychism two years after conversion - based on reasoning.

[Jal]

Believe me, I get it.  My Dad became a born-again Christian when I was in high school. One day I asked him to drive me to school. In the car, he listened to some preacher on Christian radio. I was so disgusted that I could have killed for a pair of ear plugs.

Four years later, in college, it happened to me. I met the Lord. Seeing is believing. 

Somebody once insinuated that it might just be "my feelings."  This fails to distinguish sensations from random emotions. If someone punches you in the back (you never saw him), you can't dismiss it as, "Maybe was just my emotions." 

Or let's suppose you KNOW yourself to be delusional, but nonetheless you decide to drive a vehicle.  You see a couple of pedestrians up ahead. You're thinking, "Probably just a delusion." Is it okay to run them over? Chalk it up to a hallucination? No. Generally the rational thing to do, when confronted with sensations, is to respect them. This is especially true when your conscience is demanding it.

Had a hallucination in college...decided to live life based on that experience.

What a plan.

Was your conscience still telling you that the so-called hallucination was probably a factual event and should be honored? If so, you did the right thing.

[Jal]

Sound reasoning. 

Here you will complain about being impervious to reason. Which is a misunderstanding. For most of us, not being prophets, the Inward Witness only tells us  a few general things, such as:
(1) Jesus is Lord and died for our sins
(2) The Bible is true.


This generality leaves PLENTY of room for discussion/ reasoning on specific topics, for example creation vs evolution.

You've shown that you base many of your conclusions on incredulity.  Convincing you that you've had a mystical experience is a low bar.  When it comes to actual thinking, you've yet to provide support for your principle that the intangible can't affect the tangible beyond your incredulity.  Without support for that, the rest of this is just pissing in the wind.

Nobody has shown that my golf ball analogy lacks substance.

Look, self-locomotion by free will, like self-awareness, is a fact of our experience. That's one way a piece of matter can move - it moves itself. Trying to explain this mystery is like trying to explain why reality exists, or trying to explain why consciousness exists.

The OTHER way for a piece of matter to move is to be pushed by another piece of matter. Nobody thinks to himself, "I want to hit this tangible golfball. Maybe an intangible golf club will  hit it far enough."

Some things are just stupid.

[Jal]

Sound reasoning. 

Here you will complain about being impervious to reason. Which is a misunderstanding. For most of us, not being prophets, the Inward Witness only tells us  a few general things, such as:
(1) Jesus is Lord and died for our sins
(2) The Bible is true.


This generality leaves PLENTY of room for discussion/ reasoning on specific topics, for example creation vs evolution.

The subject of what the voices in your head tell you bores me to tears.  Particularly when it comes to how the other guy got strung up so daddy wouldn't punish you for shaking your pecker too many times after a piss.  

There is no "creation vs evolution".  If your silly god "created" the world evolution is how it did it.  Seeing as how you have no trouble rejecting traditional christian beliefs and understandings why this vexes you so much is an absolute mystery.

Oh that's right - most atheists believe that domino-effect natural selection accomplished evolution.  See the OP.

Meanwhile I'll believe that Yahweh created the species. Admittedly took him 4 billion years to finish learning how to do it well enough,  but some things take time.

[Jal]

Believe me, I get it.  My Dad became a born-again Christian when I was in high school. One day I asked him to drive me to school. In the car, he listened to some preacher on Christian radio. I was so disgusted that I could have killed for a pair of ear plugs.

Four years later, in college, it happened to me. I met the Lord. Seeing is believing. 

Somebody once insinuated that it might just be "my feelings."  This fails to distinguish sensations from random emotions. If someone punches you in the back (you never saw him), you can't dismiss it as, "Maybe was just my emotions." 

Or let's suppose you KNOW yourself to be delusional, but nonetheless you decide to drive a vehicle.  You see a couple of pedestrians up ahead. You're thinking, "Probably just a delusion." Is it okay to run them over? Chalk it up to a hallucination? No. Generally the rational thing to do, when confronted with sensations, is to respect them. This is especially true when your conscience is demanding it.

Have you a habit of taking psychotropic drugs at all? Sensations are real, what causes them is open to debate.

Boru

Are you Mr. Obvious?

Yes, sensations are real, but a dream or hallucination is typically one that subjectively SEEMS to properly reflect activity in the world external to the observer, but is indeed just a figment of the observer's imagination.

See? I can play Mr. Obvious too.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh that's right - most atheists believe that domino-effect natural selection accomplished evolution.  See the OP.

Meanwhile I'll believe that Yahweh created the species. Admittedly took him 4 billion years to finish learning how to do it well enough,  but some things take time.

It's more that most people, atheists and theists alike, accept that biology is real.   You've made this your gods problem..but in mere reality it's a you problem. Perhaps you can see, in this light, how you've found yourself at the wrong place. If you wanted to know how people could believe™ in evolution...you probably should have taken this up with your own.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I am beginning to think this person needs help, professional help.

So many replies void of any real substance - just leads to me feel more confident in my conclusions.

I defer to your expertise regarding substance-posts.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Have you a habit of taking psychotropic drugs at all? Sensations are real, what causes them is open to debate.

Boru

Are you Mr. Obvious?

Yes, sensations are real, but a dream or hallucination is typically one that subjectively SEEMS to properly reflect activity in the world external to the observer, but is indeed just a figment of the observer's imagination.

See? I can play Mr. Obvious too.

Yup, it’s a figment, just like meeting Jesus face-to-face.

Boru

[Deesse23]

So many replies void of any real substance - just leads to me feel more confident in my conclusions.

I defer to your expertise regarding substance-posts.

Boru

Thats clearly pathological behaviour if you ask me.