A question about Jesus.

Ahnimus wrote:

What I find depressing is that this goes under the radar. People by enlarge subscribe to the belief in free-will and souls. The consequences are war and hatred and so on.

i think the reason goes further than our simple belief in free-will. are you telling me that if we all understood we didn't "have a choice" we would never fight, never argue, never disagree, never have wars?

soulsinging wrote:

this is essentially what i believe. but who/what is the composer? music doesn't write itself. who/what wrote the laws of science? why do protons and electrons attract instead of repel?

But we are also saying that the composer does not compose himself.

It's the paradox of infinite regression. We simply don't have any logical conclusions to draw about the origin of everything. We can say the inititial configuration was chosen by laws of science, but what put the universe in motion. Similarly if we suggest God, we beg the questions, "What is God?", "What put God in motion?".

I think that's a question that any rational agent should set aside until sufficient information is available.

Ahnimus wrote:

But we are also saying that the composer does not compose himself.

It's the paradox of infinite regression. We simply don't have any logical conclusions to draw about the origin of everything. We can say the inititial configuration was chosen by laws of science, but what put the universe in motion. Similarly if we suggest God, we beg the questions, "What is God?", "What put God in motion?".

I think that's a question that any rational agent should set aside until sufficient information is available.

well... then i guess we're limiting our perceptions of a so-called Godly entity. if there is a god.... there are no laws to it.... infinite regression, or otherwise.

in other words, there is no beginning to this "God" and there are also no endings to it either. afterall, if we're talking about a God, we're talking about a "spirit". logic doesn't apply here.

deadnothingbetter wrote:

yeah, sure go ahead. make the effort.

i see a pattern though.... to christian theology.

Christian theology is drastically different. The unlikely event of acheiving a determinists utopia is not reason to become a Christian.

soulsinging wrote:

didn't einstein subscribe to something like that? and that is the point... god to me is just an abstract concept, a way of talking about that incomprehensible source. it's like pi. pi is just a symbol for a number we will never get to the bottom of, but can obtain a certain level of understanding and function from.

Yes, Einstein was born Jewish, but later on with his friend Baruch Spinoza (also Jewish), Einstein adopted a determinist view of reality. To get a clear picture, you should read Spinoza's philosophy. It's not quite the same as what I believe, but it is quite similar.

and deadnothing has a point... you're still talking about humans striving for some sort of perfect state, which is no different from a heaven perception. there is no improving the human condition becos we cannot improve ourselves, we have no choice in the matter.

True, perhaps the Christian heaven fails because it is truly unattainable. But simply because something does not seem probable, is not reason to give up. Science has succeeded many times where naysayers have predicted the impossible.

soulsinging wrote:

you can't make the effort. YOU don't make any effort. effort doesn't exist. you're not doing anything... you're just a bunch of atoms floating around in a weird order. there's no point in trying to make an effort in any direction becos you cannot control or guide the direction any more than you can tell the atoms to rearrange themselves.

The information the brain receives is very important in determining it's course of action. If taken literally the information you are providing suggests laying in a ditch with no hope for anything. Alternatively if my brain receives information to the contrary then it's selected course of action will be on the order of striving for said goals.

You should look at this as a structure, whereby the causal events underlying brain actions do not remove from the typical psychology of our past, but rather as an enlightening aspect of it. It is still possible to love and feel passion, it is still possible to strive towards goals. The reasons for doing so are just enlightened.

soulsinging wrote:

im saying it seems to me that giving up and persevering make no sense. in a determinist worldview, neither is consequential. you cannot make any decision and thus you cannot give up or persevere. you have no choices. you're just atoms whirling around. why bother with either? if you're meant to work towards determinism, you will do it whether or not you want to or try, right?

On the contrary. Determinism is a matter similar to quantum mechanics. You can compare quantum mechanics to different types of fertilizer for growing bananas, but the two things, although related, are completely different parts of the same structure and such comparisons are irrelevent.

deadnothingbetter wrote:

that's not what i'm saying....

i mean that your views of achieving "utopia" or "alpha centauri" shadow christian theology.

We would be much better off with a realistic view of reality. Our current social paradigms are largely the results of christian theology, or the other abrahamic dogmas. They are not at all similar.