This thread is for proof that God exists

by juandefiero 375 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  slimboyfat

  Raymond Tallis's "Martian" comment about people who suppose love can be reduced in this way is well judged. Elsewhere, and more recently, he's described this approach as neuromania and a kind of neo-phrenology. Quite. When these scientists are finished scanning the brain for the location of love maybe they can get around to scanning rainbows for the coordinates of hope and the sky to measure the height of possibility.

  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/02/brain-scans-innermost-thoughts
  

  The jewel in the neuroscientific crown is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), justly described by Matt Crawford as "a fast-acting solvent of the critical faculties". It seems that pretty well any assertion placed next to an fMRI scan will attract credulous attention. Behind this is something that goes deeper than uncritical technophilia. It is the belief that you are your brain, and brain activity is identical with your consciousness, so that peering into the intracranial darkness is the best way of advancing our knowledge of humankind.
  Alas, this is based on a simple error. As someone who worked for many years, as a clinician and scientist, with people who had had strokes or suffered from epilepsy, I was acutely aware of the extent to which living an ordinary life was dependent on having a brain in some kind of working order. It did not follow from this that everyday living is being a brain in some kind of working order. The brain is a necessary condition for ordinary consciousness, but not a sufficient condition.
  You don't have to be a Cartesian dualist to accept that we are more than our brains. It's enough to acknowledge that our consciousness is not tucked away in a particular space, but is irreducibly relational. What is more, our moment-to-moment consciousness – unlike nerve impulses – is steeped in a personal and historical past and a personal and collective future, in cultures that extend beyond our individual selves. We belong to a community of minds, developed over hundreds of thousands of years, to which our brains give us access but which is not confined to the stand-alone brain. Studies that locate irreducibly social phenomena – such as "love", the aesthetic sense, "wisdom" or "Muslim fundamentalism" – in the function or dysfunction of bits of our brains are conceptually misconceived.
• 

  Coded Logic

  When these scientists are finished scanning the brain for the location of love

  
  

  But why stop the strawmanning there SBF? We can easily disprove all the scientific disciplines simply by misrepresenting what they do:

  Sociologists are engaged in pseudoscience because what they do is scan a city for the building that contains culture.

  Biologists are engaged in pseudoscience because what they do is scan the forest for the tree that contains all the ecology.

  Geneticists are engaged in pseudoscience because what they do is scan the genome for the gene that contains evolution.

  Scientists aren't "looking for the location" of love in the brain. Rather, they're noting that love exists as certain brain states. And that during those states certain regions of the brain become more active than others. Nobody's saying those active regions ARE love.
• 

  Fisherman

  So we know that scientist understand "physical" reality.
  

  Non sequitur! I did not say that. You did. I said that scientist know more about the physical universe than most
  people. I did not say that scientist understand physical reality. Scientists are limited to understand how the
  universe exists but scientist do not understand why the universe exists, they guess "why" = a random number
  generator. You are confused about reality if you assume that reality = physical universe -and nothing else is real unless it is a scientific fact which means that something should not and does not exists unless or until it is known.

  Do we know that there's another group of people who understand the "other factors that make up reality?" If so, how does this other group know there are other factors?What methodology do the use to determine those other factors?What are those other factors?Who is this group that knows about these other factors?Is there consensus in the group about those other factors?

  I have already responded to that, but you keep posting the same thing again; You only word things differently and you keep saying the same thing: 'Reality is subject to proof' If that is what you conclude you are wrong and here is why: Reality is not subject to proof because reality is not subject to personal belief, belief can be subject to proof.

  If you consider the physical universe in terms of a given working mechanical machine, it might not be so important to understand why the machine exists, but only how it works and how it was made because why it was made has zero effect on how it is working thus scientists conclude that Y has zero effect in understanding how the universe is working

  I am getting tired now but I will say this: Although Y could have zero effect on how the universe is working in terms of understanding the dynamics of the working universe does not mean that Y does not have any effect on Reality unless it was known that that Y did not exist.

  
  
• 

  Coded Logic

  Fisherman,

  I asked you those questions so that I could better understand YOUR position. Not so that you could go on a rant attacking me for positions that I do not hold.

  I had the impression you were claiming that some group of people understood reality just as well or better than scientists. If that is in fact your position, I would like to know who these people are and how you've determined they understand reality outside of the physical world.
• 

  slimboyfat

  As Raymond Tallis says:

  our consciousness is not tucked away in a particular space, but is irreducibly relational....Studies that locate irreducibly social phenomena – such as "love", the aesthetic sense, "wisdom" or "Muslim fundamentalism" – in the function or dysfunction of bits of our brains are conceptually misconceived.

  Contrast with what you said:
  

  There are multiple ways to measure love including the use of electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and computer aided tomography - just to name a few.
• 

  Coded Logic

  These are not exclusive positions SBF.

  EEG, MEG, fMRI, and CAT scans all look at the WHOLE brain. Not discreet bits.
• 

  theliberator

  God is love. Man is made in his image. While God created our brain with the ability to have a mind which can feel and share love, the fact that God is love proves that love will never be found in the brain. It is in fact a product of the supernatural. That is why it is interesting what Jesus said:

  Matthew: 22:37: Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' -

  He did not mean the blood pumping muscle

  He did not say "brain"

  He was talking about the things man will never understand. Our minds and everything it entails, will always be beyond our grasp simply because "God is love". Our minds are greater than the sum of it's parts. Some may want to deny that. But it is quite instinctive. We have to convince ourselves it is not true.
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  Coded Logic

  I know of lots of God's made by man. But I don't know a single man who was made by a God.

  the fact that God is love proves that love will never be found in the brain.

  How do you know that God is love? And how do you know it will never be found in the brain?

  Our minds are greater than the sum of it's parts.

  Agreed. And so are thunderstorms. They have properties their individual parts don't have (aka immergence). Should we conclude that thunderstorms are supernatural too?
• 

  cofty

  God is love - theliberator

  Natural evil says otherwise....

  Who trusted God was love indeed
  And love Creation's final law—
  Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
  With ravine, shriek'd against his creed—
• 

  Fisherman

  Not so that you could go on a rant attacking me for positions that I do not hold.
  

  I did not go on a rant. I did not attack your position that you do not hold stating: "that we know that scientist
  understand "physical" reality."
  

  I asked you those questions so that I could better understand YOUR position.

  Why does your understanding my position - that I have already stated on various posts on this thread- and fact ascertaining methodology affect in any way how much you know that scientist understand reality and how much scientist believe that they understand reality from scientific realism more than most people which is the subject matter of my posts that you refer to?