After years of planning and discussion FreeThoughtAction is finally in action. As of this morning, our first billboard is up on the New Jersey Turnpike just outside of NYC. (For those in the area who are interested, it?s facing southbound traffic just north of exit 18 near the Meadowlands.) It carries the following simple, positive and provocative message: “Don?t believe in God? You are not alone.” More billboards and other advertising are coming soon. 
Actually, to cheat and skip ahead, that person does consider my request?but I?ve said too much.
Being the responsible individual that I am, I refuse.
Very well, since you obviously know where I’m going with this.
Alright. You were starting to worry me with the ‘I would never willingly kill myself’ but I’ll let it slide since I don’t think you completely understood the situation.
I have other problems with the whole Biblical hypothesis (my opinion), but lets examine the last hypothesis.
Now, lets say that you don’t have a choice, and the martyr gets killed without you having a choice in the matter. You’re informed after the fact that a martyr has decided to take your place. You’re also told that you may now choose to either continue with your life (forever giving thanks to the martyr, but, hey, you’re alive aren’t you?) or continue with the just sentence. You *deserve* to die; the judge said so. What are you going to do?
Excellent!
I’m donating!
Just donated $100
Keep up the good work!
JCC, You’re going to a dark hot place for bothering the nice atheists.
Best Regards – Zeus (the bestest and most omnipotent and most powerful god. I beat up the other gods. That’s why they aren’t around. I’m on vacation in the Bahamas now. Thinking of taking yoga so I can get away from the religious freaks)
KnowledgeIsPower:
Sorry for the delay?had to catch a ride home, then got busy with other stuff. Anyway?
Fully understanding the magnitude and significance of what the martyr?s sacrifice accomplished for my good?for my benefit, and as a result, I am now able to see the err of my ways, I choose to continue with my life?forever appreciating how he chose to put my well being above his own by sacrificing himself to give true, everlasting, meaning to my repentance.
There we have it, everyone. The basic difference between myself and jcc. I understand you position. Its gotta be one of the coolest feelings in the world, not having to do hard time for your crimes (seriously messed up concept all on its own). Lets pretend for a moment that this hypothetical situation is actually how the world works. If I’ve done anything worthy of eternal damnation, then, when judgement day comes, I’ll *jump* into hell, no casting necessary, because I’ll be damned, literally, before I let anyone else die for *my* sins. Melodrama over. Glad we had this discussion. What do you want to talk about now?
Oh, its nothing personal. Wasn’t attacking you or anything. I was remembering a discussion I had recently with a christian about justice and grace. The lady was trying to insist the death penalty was God’s will (Old Testament scriptures, obviously). I was arguing that Jesus taught forgiveness in all aspects of life (parable of the debtor). She then started to say that ‘real-world’ (my words, not hers) grace was somehow different from divine grace. Really, theists come up with the craziest rationalizations sometimes.
jcc,
Here you also realize that the BRAIN is necessary to first interpret the data to pass it on to the “soul” (just letting this go for sake of discussion) then the soul signals emotion which notifies the brain to release the chemicals. Why would your “soul” need to release chemicals? Who is it notifiying emotionally then? You are unaware of these emotions until a chemical is released, so wtf is the soul?
Let me explain this better: What you are describing is the existence of TWO individuals in the body.
Data comes in to the brain and is transmitted to soul
Soul decides emotion and signals the brain to release chemicals so the emotion will be experienced, but BY WHO?
The soul, who you claim is the real you, already had the emotion so why does it release chemicals? Who is to experience the emotions next?
See you need 2 individuals for your assertion to make sense.
jcc,
And here we arrive at a great place to study via evidence. We know for a fact memories are stored in a specific area of the brain. This has been proven repeatedly through brain removal and damage.
There is also a medicine now which is used in trauma to prevent memory.
Before our brain was fully formed we have no memories. Memories FADE with time. There is a brain disease called alzheimers which effects the brain section where memories are stored.
The “soul” idea you have would need to act as a video audio recorder but why would the soul require the brain to double its function?
The same goes for the senses. In your heaven you imagine you would be able to see and hear yet why if the soul already could do this would it need eyes and ears while alive? Again, WHO is the soul showing the information it already knows to?
The soul already remembers right? So WHO are the brain stored memories for? You have created TWO beings occupying one body. One which still remembers after brain damage and one that can’t. One that can see without eyes and one that can’t.
Seriously, give that some thought.
I would also make the obvious point that animals experience emotion and memories as well yet you don’t believe they have souls or individuality.
See the disconnect? You claim above that it is a SOUL that causes emotion and stores memories therefore you are claiming animals have souls.
You can’t really have it both ways.
Either the “soul” causes emotions as per your claim or it doesn’t. If an animal can have emotions without a soul then so can we because….WE ARE ANIMALS.
To add a bit more:
You suppose the “soul” lives eternally based on what the BRAIN decided during life (to worship a specific deity)
The soul controls emotion and also acts as a sense recorder and the brain duplicates its function during life and makes decisions. Now your deity will punish based on the brains ability to interpret data correctly as per the deity’s wish.
Therefore, life is a big IQ test based on how one interprets data. How could the “soul” be responsible for how an organ functions?
Apparently the soul cannot communicate directly with the being making decisions, it must notify it of things through the brain. So who is making decisions? Does the soul not innately experience god? So why doesn’t everyone believe in the same god idea?
See you need 2 beings in every body for your belief to work. The soul already knows god but the brain does not, yet you believe your soul will be judged via decisions made by your brain during life.
Who is making decisions? Not the soul because it already knows, so who are you?
I make the claim that the soul innately knows “god” because you claim it has the ability to act as a memory sense recorder. Therefore it remembers when “god” made it. It remembers how it got into a fetus.
It is made by god in god’s image right? So why can’t it communicate with the person in the body? Who is the person in the body that can’t remember?
That is the real “I”. I THINK therefore I am. Your soul idea exists as a separate being similar to god right? Yet it is not you.
You (as the brain thinker) will die and have nothingness it is only the soul you believe will get to go back to god, but without you wtf are you left with?
KnowledgeIsPower:
Sorry to have been so spotty in responding here the last few days (had a busy weekend). Anyway, I want to comment on what you said about:
because, for the Christian, it?s not a ?cool? feeling?it?s a feeling of overwhelming gratitude. It seems strange to me that you appear to grasp the concept of grace and atonement, and yet are compelled to deride it as being foolish.
I don?t understand?if the offender is truly contrite then that is how ?the world works? before an omniscient God.
Well, I?m not sure how these hypothetical situations show that you don?t take Jesus at his word.
No offense taken. I?m just curious what your thoughts are on all this.
No argument here. No ever said that claiming to be a Christian automatically makes one fully understanding of what good theology is.
dawnisis:
My apologies to you as well for not responding sooner? had knee surgery last Friday and am just now getting caught up with things (an interesting experience?being put under general anesthesia?especially when considering the experience with respect to the nature of our discussion).
Actually, no that?s not what I was trying to say. It?s my position that the mind is what interprets physical stimuli from the senses?not the brain. The brain provides the physical apparatus to differentiate those stimuli, but it?s the mind that interprets them?the immaterial ?self? that makes sense of it all.
It doesn?t?it?s the consequence of how the brain reacts to the emotions of the mind.
Again, you don?t seem to be following what I am trying to say. Emotions are produced by the mind?the soul?in response to how it (the mind) interprets external stimuli. The emotions of the mind evoke the physical, chemical responses in the brain, which in turn produce a physical reaction in the body.
No. I?m not. You?re confusing the physical brain with the immaterial mind which controls the brain?it?s the software for the brain?s hardware?so to speak.
To an extent? Did you research hemispherectomies?
Please don?t take this as being insulting, but that assertion is based purely on an assumption that you?ve made about me here. Neither have I ever stated anything to that effect on this blog, nor do I believe that to be the case.
No. The eternal destination of a soul depends on the decisions that that soul makes?NOT the brain that it used to interpret sensory input from its environment.
When it controls that organ?it?s the software/hardware thing again.
Yes, we are all spiritual beings having a physical experience, not the other way around.
Because, as I?ve asserted before, the soul is the seat of volition and will and we are all free to interpret that ?innate experience of God? any way we (that is, our soul?s) wish to.
jcc,
The interchange of the word mind and soul are a bit confusing to me but I will assume when you say mind you mean soul.
So here you say the mind/soul interprets sense data, but that data first must be interpreted by the brain. For example, when you hear, sound waves cause vibrations and those vibrations are interpreted by the brain. (There are brain areas for this)
So in your idea you say:
Signal enters, get interpreted by the brain, brain sends it to the “mind”, the mind chooses an emotional response, and then sends signals back to the brain and the brain releases chemicals to trigger the physical emotion and again I ask you WHO the mind/soul is re-signalling the brain for? In you hypothesis the mind/soul already had the emotion.
Seems like you are basically saying you don’t know why, because my obvious question to this statement would be WHY. Why if the mind/soul already knew the emotional response would the brain react?
Like I said before it is as if their are 2 beings doubling the exact same functions which makes no sense. You claim 2 sets of memories, and an independent sense recorder separate from the brain that does not require eyes, ears, mouth, nose, body or brain.
And if the soul doesn’t require these physical things then why have them at all? And if you agree the soul does in fact require the body, then you agree heaven would be devoid of sense experience or memory.
I will assume like most xians you believe the handicapped will be made whole again in heaven. So that means someone who was blind will be furnished with all of the sight sense data he didn’t receive during life that way he could “see” his family and friends in heaven? So that means the soul in your scenario did not require eyes during life or a brain to interpret the sensory data. In your senario the soul was recording sight without these, so why have them at all and how come YOU (the thinker) cannot access this data from the mind/soul?
Again WHY would the brain need to double this emotional response? The mind/soul already experienced the emotion.
I should ask you the same thing because these people NEVER fully recover.
If an made an incorrect assumption then explain your position. This entire statement of yours offers no information. It is widely known that xians don’t believe animals have souls, but if you do then say you do.
Let’s see if I get this: your god creates a soul and instead of letting it into heaven, that wonderful utopia, he puts it into a human body to test and if you fail he will burn you for eternity but if you pass you get to go to heaven. WHY?
A large portion, if not most humans have mild to severe brain issues, whether they be of a low IQ, brain damage, emotional problems, etc. So again how can your eternal salvation be based on the function of a human organ?
Before you claimed the soul remembers everything even when the brain cannot so unless you are now claiming the soul does not store memories then this makes no sense at all.
In your hypothesis the soul remembers being created so why would a soul ever question the existence of god? And if it isn’t the soul questioning then who is?
How was oblivion? Not bad, right? Been there before, myself. I?m told that I?m a grumpy person when returning to the realm of the living.
It always comes back to faith. If faith is a prerequisite for God?s grace, it merely moves the bar to where one can be more or less merited and perverts the meaning of grace.
I?m not sure what God?s omniscience has to do with it, but my point is that any sentence God, being perfectly just, delivers is a verdict that?s deserved. It all comes back to the self-serving nature of ?seeking forgiveness?. I can be ?truly contrite? and resolved that justice be served simultaneously. It is my argument against christian doctrine that such a belief is superior since it leaves the ?forgiveness? squarely in the capable hands of God.
Sure they do. Hypothetical number one shows that the personage who would create such a situation has serious moral issues. It also shows that only the selfish can survive such a situation. Hypothetical number two shows the moral superiority of refusing the martyr. Hypothetical number three further supports the moral superiority of refusing the martyr even when the martyr has already made the sacrifice (to my mind, anyway).
I think the perfectly just, perfectly good, and limited grace aspects of christian doctrine are conflicting.
Its getting late, but its funny that you would mention the hemispheres. I have an idea that might directly refute your assertion, but it?ll have to wait until I can dig out my psychology references. Goodnight.
I hesitate to be the one to say it jcc, but what kind of an intelligent design is it that can’t repair it’s own knee, or failing that, one that fails to include an off switch for the nervous system thus entailing dangerous anesthesia.
Anyway, I’m glad you pulled through okay, and I hope your knee recovers to approximate its original design
I trust you thanked the medical staff for their skills in addition to you god fir its… errr … benevolence at allowing you to live through the surgery.
http://www.machineslikeus.com/cms/brain-networks-strengthened-by-closing-ion-channels
I hope they get this rolling quick. The bit about exposure to stress is something I’ve always had to struggle with. Its like building a sand castle. When the tide comes in, all my hard work is erased and I have to start over.
jcc,
Knowledge’s link provides a very good example of what I meant when I said your mind/soul hypothesis requires your god idea to judge people based on how well a human organ functions. The organ is the brain.
People suffer from a wide range of emotional, intellectual, and psychological brain issues yet you seem to believe that salvation is based upon how well the mind/soul manages information and selects a deity.
The only “proof” your god idea left for the mind and/or brain to process is the same evidence every other religion has as well i.e. scripture.
I would point out here that the original xian scriptures don’t even exist anywhere, so really it’s based on what the church CLAIMS was on the original.
I would also like to ask you where you are coming up with your hypothesis? It is not in scripture is it? If it is please provide the verses.
If it’s not then I would question why you are making such elaborate claims without any evidence or scripture? It seems you are struggling to make your brain figure out how heaven is possible and it’s causing you to make some grandiose claims a lot of which makes zero sense i.e. double sets of stored memories, seeing without eyes, hearing without ears
The xian disbelief in animal souls, which I pointed out would mean your soul claim regarding emotion and memory was incorrect, caused you to “snap” at me and say I don’t know what you believe about that, so I researched the xian belief in animals having souls and xians DO NOT believe that they do.
You may break from your religion on this and I would wonder why but your god gave man dominion over animals and also required animal sacrificing for petty sins and daily worship. That would be pretty sick of god to do if animals had souls and individuality.
The difference between humans and other mammals is intelligence not memory and emotion so I think for your theory to be plausible you need to let go of the idea the soul causes emotion and stores memories and instead claim it IS INTELLIGENCE, but then you would run into the wall of fact that shows people are born with widely varying intelligence and it would also cause you to relaize your idea of heaven is impossible without senses and memories.
Here’s a link for animal souls:
http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/HaveAnimalsSouls.htm
Not to rain on your parade but even xians wouldn’t believe your claims because you are just guessing and saying stuff you think makes sense, but none of it comes from anywhere but you imagination. It’s certainly not a shared xian belief.
If you got your soul idea from somewhere please provide links otherwise realize you are claiming something you imagine might be true is.
I would also point out that if xians believed animals have souls and get to go to heaven they would be PRO-LIFE regarding animals and would not hunt them for sport or kill for food. Eating a chicken egg is eating an “unborn” fetus.
It would also run counter to your belief that god requires acceptance of jesus and worship and will judge based on your life’s thoughts and actions. Animals do not have the capacity to make such intellectual decisions therefore they could not get into heaven.
Would you claim a rabbit has the soul equivalent of yours? And the rabbit must also accept jesus? Are you sending out missionaries to spread the word to the animal kingdom?
NO.
You are only saying animals have souls because if you say they don’t then you realize you soul hypothesis is WRONG.
Animals have emotion and memory and yet you claim a soul is what causes emotion and stores memories. Animals prove without a soul it is the brain and the brain alone which stores memories and causes emotion a soul has nothing to do with it.
Sorry jcc but your own hypothesis is proving xianity wrong.
Regarding hemispherectomies:
http://healthguide.howstuffworks.com/alzheimers-disease-in-depth.htm
Please visit this link to see a view of the brain from above and the side. As you can see each side contains the same capabilities as the other.(simplifying of course maybe more appropriately stated as each side has the ABILITY to perform the same functions of the corresponding side)
The brain will adapt to a cut from front to back down the middle because because the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere are mirror images (when you have both present the brain divides duties from one half to another but either half is capable of performing those functions) but it CANNOT recover from a left to right (ear to ear) brain removal because then you have removed the entire section that controls those functions.
Basically I have no idea wtf you think removing half of a section of brain while leaving the corresponding section that has the ability to perform the removed functions is in any way relevant to what we have discussed.
You cannot remove the entire section (both left and right) where memory is stored and recover. You can remove half and MIGHT adapt over years and years but never have the ability to store memories like a normal fully brained human.
http://healthguide.howstuffworks.com/alzheimers-disease-in-depth5.htm
KIP
I’m getting a PAGE NOT FOUND message when I try to link your article on machines like us. Can you make it a tiny url? I tried doing a search with the info in the link and didn’t get anywhere, except the Machines Like Us homepage.
dawnisis & KnowledgeIsPower:
Great responses & questions. I’m a bit tied up right now, but will respond later this evening if you don’t mind.
Hey karen! Somehow I thought you might be “lurking in the shadows” on this all-but-dead thread.
Hi jcc.
Not exactly lurking in the shadows-the new posts are coming up in the latest posts queue, and I’m watching them there. My brain is tied in knots trying to follow the soul/mind/brain thing you’ve got going on with dawn. And I’m looking forward to your answers to her about animals having souls and getting into heaven without accepting Christ.
I hope your knee surgery recovery goes well.
karen, KIP’s link worked for me it just took a bit for the page to load.
Basically, cAMP is to neural networks what ice-storms are to power grids in the Northwest. Wide spread release of cAMP results in massive neural network failure. In those with bi-polar disorder, like me, even mild stress can trigger the release of cAMP.
That’s *exactly* how it feels.
jcc,
I already know you will come back with more unprovable hypothesis-tic BS that you are making up on the fly with zero evidence or even theist scripture to back up your claim.
The “mind/soul” is a fantasy. We are animals, the same as a rabbit only smarter which is why we can kill and eat them at will.
I am sorry that logic doesn’t fall in line with your beliefs and your deep seeded emotional need to be granted immortality by a deity, but the fact remains all you are left with is an over active imagination that requires you to leave sense by the wayside.
If there was a soul it would have NO capacity for sense experience or memory without a brain. When you died you would be nothing which is exactly what atheists believe. A ball of energy with no capacity for thought IS nothingness.
Enter in your elaborate hypothesis to try and make sense, not to me, but to yourself, because you know you heaven idea is impossible.
You want to maintain the mind/soul is will/volition yet without the brain there is no way to exercise will/volition. Therefore when you are dead you feel, see, hear, think, and are NOTHING. Will alone is meaningless without the physical being.
You think you are in individual because of your perception of being separated and different from other humans, but as I pointed out before if we all had telepathy then you would cease to perceive yourself as an individual. You would also cease to believe your god would torture those who do not share in your specific deity delusion.
What you believe is wrong on every level. God(s) would not make imperfect souls to torture based on the very imperfection they created.
I know what I’m trying to say, but I don’t think I’m communicating my point as well as I could be.
Dawnisis, there’s connective tissue between the two hemisphere’s of the brain that is sometimes removed to cut down on epileptic seizures. I can’t remember what the operation is called, or the name for the tissue, but I think you should look up case studies of those who’ve had the tissue removed. To my memory, the operation has some interesting results that may be applicable to the current conversation.
Sorry, somehow managed to write that wrong. Stress triggers the release of cAMP in everybody. Those who are bi-polar, or schizophrenic, simply don’t regulate the release of cAMP very well.
Corpus callosum
Thank you. The corpus callosum is the membrane through which the hemispheres communicate and coordinate body functions. A healthy brain is like a dual-core processor. When you remove the corpus callosum, the hemisphere’s no longer communicate and the bodily functions are divided between each hemisphere. Instead of having one processor with two cores, you get two processors with one core each.
Hiya knowledge,
Researched connective tissues.
This is a great link about brain and nervous system function:
http://www.web-books.com/elibrary/medicine/Physiology/Nervous/Nervous.htm
Here is a boy that had the connective tissue cut to stop seizures (misfiring electrical impulses from one hemisphere to another):
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=5777
They also study this in rats. This proves that each hemisphere is capable of adapting when the other hemisphere is disconnected/damaged.
But you cannot adapt when the entire sections (both left and right) are removed.
For jcc, if you read these links you will come to realize that animals have the same basic nervous system and brain functions as humans.
So again define the mind/soul without using any capacity that animals share without a mind/soul and you will find intelligence (abstract thought) to be the only difference, but even then animals share this just not to the degree which humans have evolved.
Everlasting death-life would be nothingness with only will/volition/intelligence and no brain.
We are animals. Either all animals have souls or they don’t and if you say they all have souls you have departed from xian doctrine and invented yourself a new religion where the acceptance of jesus isn’t necessary and I hope you’re a vegetarian
jcc,
And if you will now claim animals do not have souls because you realize it totally contradicts the xian belief that heaven requires acceptance of jesus then the question falls to you to define the soul as something animals do not share with humans.
It isn’t emotion and it isn’t “will” and it isn’t sense perception and it isn’t making decisions because animals have all of these characteristics.
Chimps, dolphins, whales and elephants show a very high capacity for all of these functions including language and mourning and love.
So the soul can be none of these things.
I was just pointing out that if there is an immaterial mind seperate from a material brain, removing the corpus callosum shouldn’t affect a person’s ability to combine the stimuli into a coherent whole, unless the mind and the brain are the same thing.
To take your analogy further knowledge if their was an immaterial mind that did not require EYES to record vision (based on the xian belief the handicapped are made whole and have their life vision restored after death and that even those with eyes will continue to see after death via the soul which no longer has eyes) then why can’t a blind person access this hidden vision during life if he IS the soul?
For example:
Little billy was born blind. Little billy is his soul. Billy’s soul can see without eyes but yet billy cannot see without eyes even though he IS his soul. When little billy dies, IF he accepted jesus, he will be returned his lost vision which was being “recorded” the whole time without eyes by him.
Why couldn’t little billy, who is the soul, access his own knowledge during life?
Same would apply for someone with amnesia. JCC claims the soul stores all memories independent of the brain, yet someone with amnesia cannot access his own knowledge.
This is why I first maintained jcc’s theory requires 2 separate beings, one is born blind and lives in darkness during life yet the other is seeing (and recording) the whole time yet cannot communicate with the “brain thinker” what it knows.
The idea of salvation becomes totally dependant on one’s brain organ to process information correctly not the soul, which already knows everything yet cannot communicate it’s knowledge with the “brain thinker”..
One would have to claim that god makes all souls equal and perfect (otherwise god is an ass), so what is god judging if not the brain organ’s ability to function?
dawnisis:
Sadly, you once again make a statement that betrays your true lack of desire to both hear completely what I have to say and to try to make a genuine effort to understand what I?m trying to get across. As demonstrated previously, any attempt at citing references to support my assertions are meaningless to you as you automatically and immediately reject their credibility. You take what little I do say and with little or no requests for further clarification, use your own inaccurate misconceptions about me and my faith to extrapolate a foregone, but completely erroneous, conclusion.
What I thought was an earlier realization by you that a discussion requires simple consideration of, and some modicum of interest in, what the other person?s point of view is, has again revealed itself to simply be you using my posts as opportunities to deride whatever I say?regardless of whatever objective merit my points may have.
What began this morning as hope of me being able to make some intellectual headway with you on this topic has once again turned to frustration and disgust. It really is pointless trying to explain my point of view to you or to try to seriously continue on with this discussion when you?ve demonstrated repeatedly to not have an open mind.
I would have corrected her, but I thought you’d at least try to elucidate on the mind/brain thing.
Read up on the corpus callosum. I’ll need to think about how precisely the ’split brain’ aspect affects the mind/brain relationship.
Besides, Dawnisis isn’t being *that* derisive. You are, after all, applying a completely unfounded assertion to our knowledge of how the brain works. I would almost call it the ’soul of the gaps’ more than anything else. It does provide an interesting exercise, though, trying to find a way to falsify your claim.
Wow jcc why reply at all then? Just to act the martyr?
Either present your argument or don’t.
You’re right about me not having an open mind to illogical heaven fantasies because they are not true and I know that because I thought about your hypothesis and it is not just lacking in evidence it totally contradicts xian theology.
If there is a soul it is energy and nothing more. It does not store memories or have the capacity to experience senses without a brain.
You have no evidence because there isn’t any.
Want to end the conversation, fine, you always do when you realize you are wrong and then you always blame me for your actions.
And she has a very open mind. I’d say she’s doing a very good job creating positions you might take on the issue and refuting them. Kinda like a one person game of chess. No reason to be frustrated at all, I think.
I thought I did a pretty good job of not being too terribly cheeky with jcc this time. I merely disagreed and wrote down my thoughts.
I am “snarky” by nature
I love learning and change my mind as I learn. I think you are upset I made a pretty solid case against your hypothesis jcc and I apologize if I offended you while doing it. I don’t want to be in your dusty-feet club again.
jcc,
Remember what jesus thinks about forgiveness
and throw some my way because I am sincerely not wanting to offend you.
I like the topics you bring to the table and I like discussing things with you except that you always run off when we are just getting somewhere.
Come on jcc puleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze
cut this heathen some slack
KnowledgeIsPower:
Don?t know?can?t remember any of it. Now if I could only stop being aware of that real, quantifiable time gap in my consciousness?
Me too. My first thought in the recovery room was how hungry I was.
If the ?act? of choosing to have faith is what you?re referring to, then I suppose one can possibly construe it as such?though I?m not sure I understand how a decision qualifies as a physical deed worthy of merit.
If He?s not omniscient, He?s not perfectly just.
Agreed.
I disagree that it?s self-serving if restoration of the relationship is truly desired.
I don?t understand. God chooses to forgive on His own volition and mercy is not injustice.
That situation sounded more like what the criminally twisted guards did to inmates in Auschwitz than what a loving God would purposefully choose to do his own creations.
I fail to see how the refusing is morally superior to the martyrdom.
Again, I fail to see the moral superiority?I simply see it as a free exercise of the will.
Explain to me again how God?s grace is limited?
May I point out that your awareness of, and frustration with, your imperfect mental faculties is itself a manifestation of the distinction of your mind from your brain?
But with an overriding, self-aware, consciousness that is acutely aware of the physical dysfunction resulting from its cerebral impairment.
How can you say I didn’t give your hypothesis thought? I researched and thought about it most of the day.
You are being super unfair.
I probably put more effort into trying to understand your arguments than most jcc.
My conclusions are what my thinking led me to after much research and contemplation and nothing more.
KnowledgeIsPower:
I am? Then can you come up with a plausible and materialist explanation for the placebo effect??or how the symptoms of OCD are managed by the individual??or how phobias are treated with psychoanalysis and not drugs?
dawnisis:
Ok, then demonstrate to me that your open mind can comprehend the disconnect created by the apparent cognitive dissonance that generated these two statements:
and