Choosing a faith

Your examples are not appropriate. The actions being good or bad is opinion dependant on context, not some fact to be evaluated for efficacy.Truth value cannot be assessed on opinion.The point is, if the facts you use in deciding cannot be verified how can you have any faith in the outcome of your analysis? If you have no facts to assess your god how can you evaluate the truth value of that god?

Edited by AZPaul3, .

But scientific rationalism is the goal. As far as I can tell the psychology of revelation is that someone's got a cognitive screw loose. No matter what the understanding the stupid will still not understand and the clever will still try to appropriate.So I say speak harshly and carry a big stick of scientific rationalism.

I think you have made a very clever objection.

No, this is not right.I define construct as a consciously derived value judgement. All human cultures universally hold murder wrong because it is an exceptionally valuable construct for the survival of a social species. Further, not all human cultures use the same definitions for their constructs of what is murder. It is a calculated value judgement.When the alpha male takes over a pride he kills all the cubs. Is that murder? No it is instinct. The lion hasn't the capacity to make such a value judgement, to form such a construct. Humans appear to have lost the chemical pathways to that instinct and now rely on our emotional and reasoned responses instead.The evidence I see indicates that all of human morality are human constructs. Without GDR's woo there appear no other venues.

No GDR. The concepts pre-date Abraham's first mention of Elohim.A story I have no source for but maybe someone will recognize.Some famous anthropologist asked to date the advancement of humans over other animals pointed to the first signs we have ever found of human bones being knit together recovered from a fracture. Instead of being left to die as any other wounded animal would, the knit bones shows the individuals were treated with healthcare obviously learned. And this was well before the stone age as I recall. Definitely wars of wealth and power, blessed, if not led by the priests. Religions not just gave cover but recruited believers and enslaved surfs into the service of the warlords. But eventually that wasn't enough blood for their concepts of god so they found excuses, the thirty years war, the huguenot wars, the crusades. And that's just christian europe. Things get real bad when christians get to the Americas. You were younger back then. Even 10 years is all it takes to notice the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket. And it keeps getting worse. Every new generation screws up even more of what was such an idyllic generation. They screwed up the music so bad! I mean real bad. Come on! Disco?! So show me your shades of grey.

Why do humans continue to be so damned self-centered?Can you even conceive what love might be like for a bee? Are you so blinded by superiority that you can so confidently claim the bee equivalents of dopamine and endorphins do not swamp the bee endocrine system just as they do yours? Try to imagine what devotion to the queen feels like. Combination mother, child and lover.No. Because you have only the one conception in your mind, your limited view, the pinnacle of all creation with anything lesser, or even different, being discarded as not there.Repent, O Christian! There is more love in mindless chemistry than you heretically believe!Bees Have Feelings and Can Experience Optimism

Edited by AZPaul3, .

Edited by AZPaul3, .

Why? In humans, if a feeling, an emotion, is not a conscious value judgement then what is it? If our definition of what constitutes murder, what is and is not punishable, is not a conscious value judgement then what is it?

I don't see it.Like you, I've been through this experience with multiple kids of my own and others. What I see is the kid's first brush with death comes with the adults acting strange to the point it is obvious they think something bad happened. Death, whatever that is, is now bad, makes everyone cry and takes my friend away from me.Told that their friend has died and gone to heaven means nothing. Died has no meaning other than "not here now" and gone to heaven may as well be she went to visit her grandmother in Schenectady and won't be back, ever.So, yeah, kids learn this thing called death is bad from watching the reactions of others and feeling the loss themselves. When empathy sets in they won't want to visit that on others. I don't see an instinct kicking in. I see acculturation. And I see no glimmer of understanding of the actual results and permanence of biological death until middle school, 12-14 years old.

I have no way of knowing, can't show my knowing, therefore you can't show I am wrong which leaves open the minor probability that proves me right. Therefore god!Brilliant, GDR. Absolutely brilliant. There is that superiority showing again. There is no "The" bible. There are hundreds of them. But those others don't necessarily lead to the comforting attributes you ascribe to your favorite flavor of god so they have to be labeled as wrong. Bad bibles. Heretical bibles. Products of evil doers out to subvert the path to god. Kill the heretics! Kill the heretics!Got carried away in my religious person role. Sorry. Yes, god forbid a good atheist.I tried that. Your god does not like that. He tried to forbid me walking the streets of heaven. After a couple hours of his constant shouting, pleading with me to please leave, I walked away still laughing. Last I saw he was sobbing on his knees pointing to the pearly gates gasping and choking, "Please, please, leave. Go away!"You believe me, don't you, GDR? I mean I have no way of knowing and you have no way of knowing that I am wrong. So you do believe me, right?

You think sentience is an evolutionary plus for the planet?

And such they are. Including yours.Your beliefs about a god, a consciousness of love, are indeed GDR-made. You have acknowledged there is no evidence for your beliefs. Instead you are steeped in the logical interplay of this vs that philosophical plank and the resultant comfort level they give you in your views of god.You just pass over whether any of those planks reflect any reality to begin with. It doesn’t seem to matter. It is the emotion, the comfort level of your world view, you seem to be after, not the truth. Your religious reasons seem to be that which makes your endorphins stand to applaud. Emotion in place of analysis. Dopamine in place of logic.No problem. You are so entitled. I just wish you would recognize such. But that would destroy the fantasy.I suffer the same kind of problem with religionists they suffer with me. They cannot comprehend “no belief in gods” claiming I disrespect or disobey their gods. I have major issues with someone who can so callously disregard the reality we know trying to claim, unevidenced, there is more.There is no more. There will never be any more …… until someone comes up with some compelling evidence.Scientists can do that. Even knowledgeable laymen can do that. But religionists cannot. It’s not for a lack of trying, it’s a lack of ability. You guys think in fantasy and your emotional judgements cannot be trusted to be accurate. You haven’t shown the ability to deal with reality.Stumbling around in such a fog how do you keep from mentally stubbing your toes with each step? GDR, you must suffer constant cognitive dissonance. You poor poor creature.But I have a solution. Become an atheist.I’ve done this with Phat. I still think, with some work, he can become a good humanist of the highest atheist order. I want to invite you to join with him and you both cross the Christopher Hitchens Bridge together.I know you would make a most excellent humanist. In casting off the yolk of religious chains your mind will be free to see the real beauty this universe has in making all this with nothing but mindless particles reacting to the flow of energy gradients.You were proud to put a directed majik in your religion. Come to us, GDR, and be awed by the true magic of the mindless reality of cosmic creation.Relieve your cognitive dissonance. Join us. November timeframe, TBD, Phoenix Area Annual Atheist Baby-Eating Gala. Along with Phat’s, I’ll hold tickets for you. You and a friend.Afterword we’ll go deep into the dark desert and watch the Milky Way blaze in the cosmos. We’ll look out over the world to despair the stupidity and the violence that is still so deep in humanity. Then after another hit on the vape, we can cry in existential angst, which I understand this year is to be accompanied by a recording of Mozart’s Requiem. Fantastic!

No, I just collect the facts. The conclusions draw themselves for the consensus. Yes, dive deeper into the fantasy. Always an available choice. Good thinking. Yeah, that human with that mythology, along with unicorns and, I think leprechauns were mentioned. Yes, I don’t entertain a lot of silliness. Doctor says it's not good for my diet. Well, I wouldn’t say that is all that really matters but such does seem to make things more pleasant than otherwise. Agreed.

Sure you can. You can have whatever mix of contradictory traits you want in your fantasy. Which bible? Strawman or no there are still hundreds of them. Yes, 3500-2000 years ago when man, apparently, was at the height of his intellectual powers.

Why would you propose such a thing? And you know this how? You have experience with supernatural sources masquerading as natural processes?What possible reason is there to consider such a thing? Just because you can pull it out your butt?If that's the case then I say you, GDR, are an animorph assigned by Czar Putin to disrupt American morals through religious lies. And since you are an unaware dupe in this scheme you know nothing of your true life.I have no evidence and neither do you. I win and you must acknowledge that I'm as right as you are.

A talking snake? Really? The point is since that time the obvious errors and stupidities have not been corrected but, instead have been institutionalized and weaponized. It's like you religion guys don't want to see the progress of human intellect since the stone age.