Are you in favor of this particular vapid ex nihilo interpretation of the big bang theory? Given the only people I here espouse it are pop-science journals (to layman) and perhaps also creationists or rather poorly literate apologists.

Enlighten me? Either there is a singularity, or some other fudge (poetry). You still have the same problem.

Can you account for any opinion that there is no supernatural component in our origin, I can't see one?

If the idea of gods seems absurd to a person, how does the idea of something coming from nothing not also seem absurd?

Quite, we are all in the dark about our origins, which means there are a large number of questions, or issues which we can't answer, or resolve.

That is the essence of my problem with the term "supernatural."

I entirely agree. Some people think though that the supernatural element is the creation of something out of nothing.

Nice speech from Obama.

We should remember that the mod's are just trying to archive the forum in a credible way for posterity. This might come across as weird sometimes, but we're all struggling right now, with this virus (please excuse the sarcasm).

P.s. I too bow down to the Unenlightened one.

Consciousness is not necessary in general because there's a (simple) possible world without — that's the (simple) logic.

I presume you have noted that I am not making an assertion, but rather critiquing the positive assertion that consciousness is not necessary for existence.
All I need to do to achieve this is to remind you of the philosophy of idealism, in which it is considered that consciousness (mind) is primary and the physical world we find ourselves in is some kind of mental projection, is contingent on the mind and consciousness of the beings who experience it. I know this is a big ask and it's not my personal philosophy. But The cogito accepts this possibility.

I think, therefore there is something.

The something cannot to divorced from the being doing the thinking. The whole natural world described by science is in a sense a nursery rhythm, narrative, or poetical flourish in the way this mind experiences this something.

In other words, you are saying that something we do not understand is responsible for something else that we also do not understand.

Sounds like a quantum physicist, or a Astro physicist.

The sentence "consciousness is necessary for existence" is poetry and as such cannot be assigned a truth value.

You can't diminish the existential considerations of our origins, as an artistic flourish. It's there in the philosophy, philosophy is an open minded exercise, not one of limitation of thought. One might also say that the notion that the singularity in the Big Bang event popped into existence from nowhere, is a poetical flourish in spite of how illogical that is.

This assertion fails

Punshhh

Why?

I already answered this, we don't have sufficient information about existence to determine that consciousness is not a necessity. This is self evident.

consciousness [...] is [...] logically necessary to exist

— 3017amen
I can't speak for 3017amen, but there are philosophical arguments that consciousness is primary to the experience of existing, idealism for example.

As I have said before, my position is that we don't know and can't say what is entailed in our origins.

2. say, R3 is a self-consistent whole, a possible world, non-contradictory

From our position of ignorance of the nature of our existence, our world, we cannot consider such things as alternative worlds to the extent that such notional worlds can answer questions about our world. Basically it is more speculation about possibilities, subject to human frailty.

So something that we don't know what it is - is necessary for something else that we don't know what it is?

It is you who made a claim that consciousness is not necessary for existence. How do you know that this is the case in nature? I did not make a claim, I am considering possibilities. Possibilities which may be the case, because we don't know the nature of our origins, there are numerous possibilities. From our position of ignorance we cannot say that one or more of the possibilities is definitively not the case. The best you can do is put the case that human frailty did it, but that goes both ways.

I can explain why consciousness is good evidence for the existence of God, should a God exist. Also that we cannot use philosophy, science, or logic to answer the question of whether a God is involved in our existence, or is not.

But consciousness is not necessary for existence.

This assertion fails, because we don't know what existence entails, so we can't discern any role in it played by consciousness.

unless you are some sort of pantheist

This is a straw man, no one is suggesting that everything is conscious, or pantheism.

This line of reasoning is called "God of the gaps"

Straw again, This only applies when someone attempts to justify a belief in the existence of God. I was simply pointing out that consciousness is good evidence of God, should we exist in a world created by God.

Can you show me how we can come to exist and be conscious in this world without its being created by a God?

Gavin Williamson* can't resign, or be sacked, however bad the mess gets, because if he does, the spell is broken. Going right back to the lie on the side of the bus and the breaking point poster.
The Rubicon was crossed at Barnard Castle, there is no way back now, no resignations, no apologies, no accountability, no sign of the Prime Minister. They can only accelerate, the closer to the cliff edge we get, the faster we must go.


*Gavin Williamson is the education secretary in the UK, presiding over the A level grade debacle. One of the Yes men in Johnson's populist government.

Well, OK, you can engage - it's just going to be meaningless - as is pretty much everything you've said so far in this conversation

That's not fair, you haven't addressed 3017amen's central point, which is a legitimate concern.

Namely that consciousness is good evidence of God, that consciousness is necessary for [our] existence and that it's origin, or its presence, is not explained, or accounted for philosophically.

How can there be mass voter fraud through postal votes if there are very few postboxes and those that there are, are not used. it doesn't make sense?


The populists in the UK suffer from the same paranoia. They repeatedly claim that there is a risk of mass voter fraud through postal voting. But there has never been any evidence of it. They can't even explain who would become involved in it, why they would do it.

I should have seen this before I replied to him. I would like to have seen him squirming, although, I expect he would have just adopted the usual evasion and trolling tactics. Equally he will read my post, but be unable to reply, how frustrated he will be.

jesus is describing his version of ",truth" to his disciples. Saying IS describing.

Well yes he was describing a kind of truth, but the way he was describing it explicitly explained how it was a truth not known through intellectual description, or human description of direct human experience. Look at the passage again, with the rest of the relevant text;
"Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” John 14:5-10"

Can you read and understand what is being said through the words? Jesus is specifically explaining how his disciples will, can and already do know the truth of himself and God through living with him. There is no describing things going on in the way Jesus knows the truth of God, it is visceral, it is real experience primary to any mental apprehension, or description of it.

I read this as jesus being an Elitist political priest.

Jesus was not a priest, he was someone who experienced some kind of divinity and tried to convey it, its truth to those around him. Also, he was not political, although he did seek to expose political corruption from time to time.

In John 14:6 Jesus says to his disciples "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Jesus is alluding to another kind of truth, other than by description. How do you read this?

I see art as a social enterprise, although that includes artists, as individuals, having a great deal of freedom in their work. Whether this individual work is regarded as good, or valid art, is then assessed by the social enterprise once it becomes exposed to society.

I do consider though, there there is timeless art produced sometimes, which is always regarded as great art whatever the social conditions. Because it has achieved some transcendent standard of perfection. For example early Greek, or classical art.

I would also stress that beauty is linked to the human experience of the beauty of people, who are regarded by society as beautiful. Also in the human experience of nature as regarded as beautiful by society. This can also become timeless like the great art I just mentioned.

Perhaps this timeless quality could be described as archetypal.

I agree that art and beauty are separate as you say. But that there is some cross over, where art leans towards beauty and beauty can be nuanced by art. Again this is a social and cultural phenomenon.

I think it is important in such a discussion to make a distinction between what is beautiful, or of artistic merit, to an individual and what is regarded as such by the artistic establishment, or society. For example the development of conceptual art, a movement which was driven by the establishment, although some individual artists embraced it. There was a kind of arms race of legitimacy in which artists participated in competing efforts to come up with novel, deep, or superior conceptual expressions, installations, or performances. Many viewers and artists reject this project and regard it as art devouring its own tail. Resulting in the artistic establishment losing its way and losing touch with real artists and traditions.

I'm facing facts, accepting the fact that we are not equipped to answer the questions of our origins does not mean we are somehow giving up, lost, or trying to make something out of nothing. We still have the full cannon of human knowledge, science etc, to exercise our minds, to entertain, to stimulate us. I am interested in knowing what we don't know and identifying things that some profess to know, but in reality can't know. Also, identifying other means of knowing than via intellectual knowledge.

And what about the vulnerable groups in our populations? You know those transplant patients on immunosuppressants, those with cystic fibrosis, emphysema those with underlying health conditions which will seriously compromise their response to Covid etc etc? Or the excess deaths due to other conditions like cancer while the hospitals are full of Covid patients?

These people can be grouped under the heading of vulnerable groups. In the UK, this group is about 2 million, in a population of 67 million. Should we just forget about them, for some other reason?

So it is crazy to say, "it is its own causality".

That's cleared that up.

So, down here on Earth in real life, what's the difference?

That's not a useful comparison because it compares two scenarios, one of which is known to be encountered frequently in our world with one known to never happen in our world. However when it comes to details of our origins there is no way to determine if a proposed scenario is known to be the case, or known not to be the case. Such a determination may well be possible, but I can't see how we are in a position to determine it, philosophically, at this time.

I can't answer for claims made by theists. Personally I don't make claims, or hold beliefs, so your line of argument doesn't appear to address someone in my position.

It is its own causality and yes it's crazy to think it's a person with a higher nature

And it's not crazy to say "it is its own causality"?

I agree with your reference to the will in a person. There is a serious discussion to be had around this, but not here as, like I said before, any arguments will be dismissed, as belief systems designed to legitimise God belief systems, in favour of biologically evolved human traits in a materialist belief system.

What is better is to point out the extent to which philosophers are complacent in simply accepting that the way life and experience, as had by people, is the normal, obvious result of certain chemical processes in physical bodies evolved in a material universe. Or as you say, that consciousness emerged from a piece of wood. This is complacent because it ignores the philosophical questions about our origins and consciousness, a conscious mind, which are unanswered. The lack of answers is dismissed as baseless, or wild speculation in areas which will be explained by science in the future.

And please don't bother mentioning situations where the murdering was done communists / socialists / fascists - these are all belief systems. E.g., Stalin did not murder millions in the name of atheism - he murdered them because he was a psychopathic killer.

What I'm looking for are situations where a group of atheists / agnostics / ignostics murdered large numbers of religious people in the name of atheism / agnosticism / ignosticism.

There aren't many people left following your exclusions, that sort of answers your question by default. On closer analysis I think you will find that most of the mass murderers were insane, so if they adopted religious views while carrying out their insanity that is not the fault of the religion.

On a more serious note what you have highlighted is the clash between the project of religion in human societies and the inevitable tribal, or nation conflict between different races, or civilisations. Religion in the distant past was always established (initially at least) to give some moral and social direction to populations, which could otherwise go down a path of feudalism, debauchery or going to war continually with its neighbour's. In more recent times when populations became larger and the spaces between them became smaller there was inevitably conflict and fundamentalist belief systems were employed as ways of turning populations against their enemies. Also religion became a means of controlling populations. By this point religion had got itself into allsorts of deep water through the application of human nature. Which was never the intention initially.

I don't want to get into a discussion of scripture, but the annunciation isn't mentioned in Mark and the resurrection comes across as someone who has gone to heaven. It is common for religious organisations to embellish their message, more human frailty.

What do y'all think?

I agree, here in the UK it is the populist press which fuels the ideas that it is not a serious disease and that greater harm is being done to the economy. There are commentators saying that a mask is like a muzzle and is an affront to civil liberties etc. In reality it is the billionaire barons who own such media outlets and who fund the government who are scared, because they milk the system and it's their assets will are now devaluing big time. That is why there is a campaign to make people go back to the office rather than work from home, even though productivity might be up and bosses are happy with their workforce working remotely. The landlords who own the high rises office blocks who are loosing out and who hobnob with the Conservative government, the bribery is in plain sight now. The plan is to turn worker against worker and shame people to go back to the office.

Our government makes me sick, they are holding on by their fingernails and have been spiralling down since the financial crisis of 2008. Turning to more desperate means to keep in office and likely to take us all down with them, Brexit being a symptom of this trend.

Perhaps the best example is the Book of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve. Was there a guy, a gal, and a talking snake? Probably not. That part is probably just a fable which tries to explain something profound to uneducated peasants of 3,000 years ago, much as we might try to explain sex to a five year old.

You raise a good point, the allegory was a means of conveying wisdom amongst uneducated (relatively) populations. Something which has been practiced for millennia and long before modern religions like Christianity came along.

But is our relationship with knowledge a central fact of our personal human experience? Is that relationship causing us to race towards ejection from the garden of eden of the biosphere in our own time? Does the Adam and Eve story reference something which could be profoundly true? Maybe it does.

Quite.

My guess is that there were some quite wise people in ancient times, and they tried to share what they saw in the cultural medium of their time. That cultural medium is now very out of date, but that doesn't automatically equal their insights being useless.

Indeed, the book of Revelation might be appropriate. Wisdom is something which isn't recognised in the modern world, but was of great importance in the past when peoples didn't have the extensive teachings available to us now. Even now wisdom is invaluable in steering our civilisation forward. Although we currently have a problem with our leaders who seem to have buried their heads up their own backsides rather than seek out wide council ( revelation indeed).

The Nicene Creed was written declaring 'Jesus is "in part God"' only in order to appease the demands of a pagan emperor who, believing himself divine (i.e. avatar of Jupiter, Mithras or whatever) according to Roman tradition, could not make Christianity the official religion of the empire - and thereby be baptized into "the faith" - if the Christians' so-called "messiah" was only a "blessed", but not divine, human being, as most of the early churches had taught & congregations had believed for centuries.

So did they add the story of the annunciation and the ascension etc?

But when people talk like God is a real being who actually does stuff that makes a difference in the world, rather than as an ideal to aspire to or a comforting thing to imagine or a metaphor or something, then they’ve lost track of the difference between fact and fiction.

One should make the distinction between people who claim that this God does exist and those who are merely considering the possibility. Someone can speculate that God is a real being, who does things in the world, because we are not in a position to claim that it is not a possibility.

Maybe someone should just check if there is 2,700 tonnes of high explosive stored near the White House. Better safe than sorry.

Explain how you know this - inexplicable occulting - to be the case, that it's our human cognitive predicament.

I don't know that with any degree of certainty. It just seems obvious to me, in the light of how much about our origins we don't know.

Also regarding our predicament, if you take the full breadth of human knowledge, it is entirely derived from aspects of our lived experience. An experience dictated by the nature of the bodies and biosphere we find ourselves in, are born into. Even our intellectual knowledge is born of a mind developed to pick berries and hunt with speares. A world in which things like space, time, physical material, gravity, solid, liquid, gas, fire, are all taken for granted as aspects of reality. To the extent perhaps, that their origins are not even considered, or how it all came to be the way it is. But rather, it is regarded as normality, even reality is self.

But actually what we take for reality in this way, is only a description of what we find, not an explanation. Although science has successfully explained how many of these aspects of our world relate to each other and interact, including the origins of things within the sphere of the materials we find in front of us out of others. However any explanation of the broader origins of this reality are entirely absent. This is understandable, because it is beyond our capabilities. But this realisation is not justification to deny any explanation there might be out there, however odd it might seem to be to us. In reality, we are in the dark when it comes to a knowledge of our origins.

As it relates to a "different kind [of knowledge] to that provided by the intellect", it almost begs another question relative to Kant's metaphysics. How is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?

Quite, there is an assumption by humanity that the normal, or default state of living human experience is a stable emergent property of the interaction of physical material. That there need not be any more to it than that. I see this as a psychological comfort zone. It being advantageous for us (at this stage of our development) to dwell in a feeling of static peace, in which only that which we perceive and interact with in our environment is real and anything else entailed, which we don't perceive is absent, a myth.

This being the case, any novel, unexpected aspects of this reality tend to be dismissed as some sort of figment of an overactive imagination, or peculiarity of thought processes. In this way materialism dismisses speculation of such condierations out of hand, while ignoring any attempts to reconcile the big existential questions with our experience of living and handing them over to science which will eventually explain everything for us. Indeed some materialists insist that pretty much all fundamental questions have now been answered and that humanity is the pinnacle of evolution.

While to folk who stare the big questions in the face daily are dismayed at the complacency. For example, what on earth is it that enables such a complex entity as a human to persist in such a diverse environment as the world we find ourselves in, with time and extension, presence and being? We are all familiar with the account provided by the sciences. But that account is merely a description of what is found by the set of faculties we find we have in these bodies we find ourselves in at birth. It is merely the tip of the iceberg, not any kind of explanation, with the 90% of the reality of our existence hidden beneath the surface, like the iceberg. Simply because we are not equipped to perceive it.

And the materialist just says, nothing to see here, move along now, nothing to see here.

Naïve, uncritical, gullible, malleable, credulous, "seeing faces in the clouds", ..., philosophically or otherwise?

Yes, both sides can engage in this. When I first came to philosophy forums I was surprised to see philosophers discussing theology. Then I realised the history of religion in our societies resulted in that. Perhaps now philosophers are distancing themselves from it.

Not sure I understood your comment right, entirely possible I misread, in which case discard: Per earlier, in what way does an adult's non-naïveté (or epistemic attitude) demand that they take into account, incorporate thoughts of, intangible hobs that can control the weather in their lives? (Should their spouse family friends be concerned?) If absent in any way that matters, then in/consistency between epistemic attitude and real life comes-to-the-fore.

My comment was simply that the reasons given by atheists to support any conclusions that there isn't a g/God are naive in philosophical terms. Because a cursory examination would conclude that humans are ill-equipped to answer the question, either way, so theists are similarly naive to attempt to conclude the opposite using philosophy.

Anyway going back to your thoughts on hobs, it's more evidence of human frailty, I'm afraid. However the "non-naive" are not impelled to take hobs seriously. Because there is a legitimate philosophical issue concerning our origin, of whether it was by design, by a mind perhaps, or not. This is because of the primacy of our known experience being via the mind. Therefore our mental existence is philosophically primary to what is perceived, or experienced by us during our existence (but I expect you know this). So the enquirer can seriously consider this designer in the absence of, by implication, any hobs.

Some of the claimants (including @3017amen if memory serves) have difficulties with biological evolution. :confused:

Each to his own. I don't see any inconsistency between divinity and the discoveries of science, such divisions are historical baggage.

about universal, or remote origins
— Punshhh

Are we talking grandeurs by which the universe pales?

No, it's a reality that we originated and that the nature of that origin is approached philosophically, hence metaphysics.

The claimants will typically also have it that their super-beings can hide entirely from us, but we cannot hide from them, which seems mostly like post-rationalization.

This is inevitable, I'm afraid, it's rather like a Laurel and Hardy sketch.

A kind of rationalization going on here converges on a particular category of propositions, p, so that both p and ¬p are compatible with attainable evidence. Sometimes by design (intent-to-rescue), sometimes not.

Apologies if I am not following the standard form of these debates, I approach from left field. But logic is no use either, without any genuine indication, or evidence of our origins we are blind to the reality, so anything we conclude intellectually is again mute on the issue.

Sometimes by design, immunized from counter/evidence. What's left? Epic experiences, personal revelations, ...?

Well these do figure in the lives of theists and they may entail other means of knowledge than the intellect. But as I said earlier it is impossible to prove even to oneself, if God is standing before you that g/Gods exist. Again due to human frailty. In reality there is a real process by which we originated and we are blind to it. That's as far as the intellect goes. To go further you have to use other means.

"And where's Jesus?" :)

Jesus is professed to be a prophet, so has had his blinkers lifted apparently, amongst other things. Prophets do appear to attain some wisdom, even esoteric knowledge about reality, but it is not easily amenable to intellectual, or philosophical consideration. This I consider is due to the knowledge attained being of a different kind to that provided by the intellect.

I answered these concerns previously. Unfortunately it can only amount to evidence of human frailty. They can't answer the question at hand and any opinion that such concerns add weight to an answer of no to the question are naive, philosophically. For example it is unlikely that there is a teapot orbiting the sun, but any arguments made about the impossibility of it are merely arguments of improbability, or unlikelyness. It can't be proved that it isn't orbiting the sun without actually looking at every square inch of space around the Sun. It's worse than this in reference to g/God because improbability, or unlikelyness is everywhere in the eyes of humans, who are evolved to perceive and act practically/pragmatically in the physical environment they are born into. Whereas the question at hand is about universal, or remote origins. An alien environment for the human mind. As such normal rational concerns are mute in answering it.

"mys·ti·cism
belief that union with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender."

I think you will find that trying to tie down Mystics is harder than herding cats (just like philosophers).

Is this about right?

That is a reasonable distillation into a sentence.

If it's about knowledge, that's reason, yes? No? The mind posits something beyond itself, called here god, that by definition cannot be known - and then some fools proceed to claim to know about it.

Knowledge via rational thought is secondary to other forms of knowledge.

There are fools all around us, like those who profess to know that there are no prior temporal events to the Big Bang event.

Is not this better? That the mind supposes something beyond itself and then applies its powers to understanding what that idea might mean, imply, reveal, learning what thinking and reason might offer.

In day to day life, yes. But Mystics tend to be interested in reality rather than practicality.

For me, what we don't know is of interest, it helps to orientate ourselves, to find a secure anchorage.

I don't see it problematic at all. It's relative to the Metaphysical features of consciousness, which are different from that of Darwinian instinct. The analogies would be mathematical ability and/or musical genius. Neither of which confer any biological advantages in providing for survival of the fittest.

I agree, but for different reasons. My point was though, that it gives to much wriggle room for the atheist.

Similarly, if the atheist cosmological argument centers around materialism, it fails. As it relates to conscious existence, atheist Dennett acquiesced to the phenomenon of qualia, which is simply a euphemism for Metaphysical phenomenon from consciousness.

Materialism is blind, in the sense that it ignores any consideration of origin other than what is provided by the speculation of scientists. And takes for granted, indeed crystallises around the simplistic concepts* of the constitution of material as described by science.

In short, Love is not needed for survival yet is a universally intrinsic and/or an innate feature of conscious existence. As it relates to musical and mathematical ability respectively, how could this (Love) universally subjective, yet seemingly objective truth, be so critical to the human condition?

But you allude to a blind spot in materialism, which reduces all such aspects of consciousness to the material products of the evolution of material.

That is just one of many things that relate to our self-awareness which is in itself, distinct from emergent properties of instinct.

Really we require a universe known to originate from dust alone to compare with our own, otherwise we will go around in circles philosophically.

*Symplistic compared to what is likely going on in existence.

It's always either reason or unreason. What's your pleasure? Or have you already told us it's unreason.

This is a discussion of positions on Gods amongst philosophers, so all avenues are relevant to the discussion. When it comes to the wider world, it doesn't figure and the jury is out when it comes to whether religion is a benefit, or a problem in the development and survival of the species.

Personally, I practice mysticism, so unusual perspectives on such things is the norm. I don't impose any of it on others, or aim to indoctrinate others. As regards "unreason", well acknowledging our limitations casts a shadow on what we do, or can know, helping us to see what we think we can know, but really can't. Like for example if there are/were prior temporal events in the origin of the Big Bang event. Some folk around here profess to know such things.

Indeed. I think it was in cognitive science's William James who said, in his book about The Varieties of Religious Experiences: "Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.".

Quite, also we might be intimately involved in a myriad of process beyond our comprehension, or preview.

So another question for the Atheist is, if Love can't do what instinct does (or if it's an ancillary/redundant feature of consciousness) to effect survival needs, why should Love exist, what is its purpose? Surely it's not needed to procreate, when instinct is all that's needed... ? Is Love a Universal truth? How does Atheism square the metaphysical circle?

This argument is problematic because the other side of the debate will just dismiss it as sentimentality, or a natural bonding emotion. It eludes to a greater problem for the atheist position. Which is the problem of distinguishing a universe which is purely a happenstance of dust, from a universe which is entirely created by a God. How would they differ? This question is impossible to answer in the absence of a control, a universe confirmed one way, or the other to compare with.

Explain how an ultimate "issue" makes an existential difference one way or another to proximate beings like us.

It might not at first seem to figure. But each of us does reach this fork in the road. Although many might just follow the herd, those who are inquisitive will give it some thought. Also on a larger scale it might figure. Religion, has for millennia, been adopted as a means to steer the population. Likewise the population has been steered absent religion towards rabid capitalism, the verge of nuclear annihilation, or moral collapse.