₦airaland Forum

PastorAio, the mirror test has been the most conclusive empirical evidence that most Animals are not self aware.Rubbishing it is like saying all the progress achieved in Philosophy of Cognitive Science is nonsense.

Have you read T.S.S shillab's work titled, What mirror Self-Recognition in Non-humans can tell us About aspects of Self.

Or J.smiths - animal self consciousness.

Pastor thanks for your input on the matter.You rightly point out that this is a problem of identity,but i also believe it is more of a problem of the historical mind body problem.

My analogy is derived from Richard Swirnburnes commentary on Descartes.

He later went ahead and formulated an Argument for souls.

Tudor,when i speak of a person's stream of consciousnes, i am not talking of character or acquired behaviour traits.These ofcourse help to mould our personality.What i'm talking about is Self awareness.

You see,a cat or a bird will look at itself in the mirror and not recognise itself.Meaning that most animals are not aware of themselves.Babies also exhibit this kind of behavior,when a mirror is placed infront of them,they always try to reach for the mirror as if they are seeing another baby.

This awareness of yourself is what we call THE SELF.

The two bodies A and B will both have consciousness,but who will have Tom's Self.i.e which of the two will be aware that He's Tom.I am not talking of Tom's behaviours or Character,or even Tom's name,am talking of Tom's Self.
To put it more crudely, Who will feel that he's Tom?

Ofcourse these two people A and B might develop new charåters that are radically different from Tom's.

But the question again is,who will have Tom's Self.or none?

Thanks all for your interesting replies.

When we speak of a person, we generally mean an individual who has the capacity to think.how we think and behave sets us apart from other people.

Even a pair of twins seemingly having similar behavior are two distinct persons with two different streams of consciousness.

Now Tom is a person with a distinct consciousnes and self awareness.

If you take a loaf of bread and split it into two,and someone asks you,What happened to the loaf?you will say half a bread is here and the other half is therd.

When it comes to Tom's brain,the answer is very simple.Half of Tom's brain is in Body A,and the Other is in Body B.
The big question is What happened to tom.not his brain.What Happened to that particular stream of consciousness that made up a self aware Individual person called tom.

We can't say Tom is half in A and B.People or Persons are never in halves.Would A feel pain if B is pinched?

It seems there are 3 plausible answers as to what happened to Tom.

1.Tom is in Body A.
2.Tom is in Body B.
3.Tom no longer exists.

All the above are equally plausible.Remember that Body A and B have consciousness now,and they ard two distinct individuals from each other(since they have separate streams of consciousness).

@ Saur and Tudor.Personhood does not simply entail behaviour,it entails identity and Self awareness which are also products of consciousness.

Therefore Saur,i don't see how retraining or counselling the new Individuals A and B answers the question as to what happend to Tom's stream of consciousness or as Descartes put it, Tom's SELF.

And furthermore how will retraining them give rise to Tom's self?

I appreciate your inputs and hope more join this debate.

You are aware that there is a difference between a scientifìc query and a philosophical one?

My question deals with the philosophical topic of the SELF.If the SELF is simply a result of brain activity,then what happens when such a scenario as described above occurs.

You said that maybe tom could have both personalities.Are you saying that Tom the person would be in two different bodies?
And one more question,why are your posts so combative?I thougt we would have a civil discussion devoid of snide and unnecesary emotional connotations.

@ Tudor, it's not a question of what will be the outcome of the experiment. I am not even concerned on what physical or chemical processes will take place.Mine is a far more deeper question.A philosophical question.

In short,my argument was this,If materialism is true,we should be able to know all the facts about a material object.If tom is a purely a material object,then we should be able to know what would happen to Tom's personhood.

I sought to show that here is an example where we have all the Material facts about Tom,but we still cannot know what/where is Tom the person.

If that question can't be answered now,then it can't be answered in 2097 either!

Ofcourse we can't know the exact details of how the brain will be split,which chemical or nuorological processes will take place etc until we perform the experiment.But that is not my concern.

I thought I would seek your opinions on the famous Mind body problem.

The question is,is our brain just physical or there is a Mind which creates our personhood.

Many scientists are materialists and hence believe that our brains are solely responsible for our consciousness,character's and personhood. Theists are dualists,i.e they belive that humans are made of a soul and body.

I believe there are many problems with the view that we are simply material objects.but my main concern is the following problem.

Let us imagine that indeed we are material objects with no such thing as the soul.

It is the year 2097,and scientists have discoved a way of doing brain transplants.Did you know that a human beings can succesfuly live with half a brain?

Now Lets say Tom becomes paralyzed from Neck to Toe.Doctors perform a brain transplant and take one half of Toms brain and puts it Body A,and then they take the other half and put it in Body B.

Body A and B both gain consciousness.Body A goes to live in Chicago,and body B goes to live in Egypt.Now the big question is Where is Tom?

Remember I'm not asking where is tom's body,am asking,where is Tom the person.
Is he in the new body A or new Body B?is he in both?

But he can't be in two places at a time.And yet we can't say whether he's in Body A or B since a persons character,consciousness,memory etc are stored in both parts of the brain.

If materialism was true,we should be able to tell all the facts about a given material object.But here is a clear example of a situation where we can not know a particular information simply from material facts.

The implications of this is enormous.It reinforces the Duality of man.For a non-materialists,the answer as to what happened to tom depends on where his soul is.Unlike the materialists where Tom's brain is in two different bodies,the soul cannot be split,and hence can only be in one body.And so no dilemma for the dualist.

I welcome discussions.lets keep it civil and mature,

Predestination and determinism are not the same thing.
Very few Christian theologians beleive that christianity preaches predistanation.Its simply a construct of Evangelists.

God may have a plan for you,but it does not mean that we are predistined.We can choose not to follow God's plan.The theme of free will is all over the bible.

Therefore pointing out the incompatibility of Freewill and Predestination in Christianity, is a strawman.

A kenyan visitors Visa is obtained at the airport on arrival.it costs about 50 dollars. I am not sure whether you will be granted a 6 month VISA.
About living costs during 6 months, it depends, Nairobi and Mombasa are relatively costly,Unless you choose to stay in a 3 star hotel on the dingy side of town or with friends.

Just google for cheap hotels in Nairobi.Alot of backpackers and Asian tourists use them.
But i would advice you to look for Naija guys so as to save on costs.There is a sizable community of Nigerians in USIU university.

Otherwise Good luck.

@ Justwise, I am aware of the poor Ranking of UEL, but they also gave me a good schorlaship whch has eased alot of the financial burdens from my parents who are already paying tuition fee for 3 of my siblings in Australia.

I believe that if i can work extremely hard and get a good Msc degree,then my chances will improve greatly.It won't b easy i know,but i don't think it's hopeless either.

Now that its too late to change my choice of school, I would have loved to get any information about SouthEast London, especialy SE1 area.I have read 'horror' stories on Nairaland about places like Peckham etc.So i just want advice on which areas provide good affordable accommodation that does not compromise on Security and comfort.

Otherwise i will b forced to take up college accommodation which is too costly and far.(40 mins commuting time to college for graduate accommodation)

Thanx for the information.I have already paid my tuition fee to the college,so i guess its too late.

UEL and STM came to Kenya and did a very thorough marketing campaign.Before i knew it i was already enrolled.But i do have an undergraduate degree from Oxford Brookes which is ranked 55th,hopefuly that will be considered by future employers.

Any info about cost of accommodation around SE1? And part time job availability?

I thougt Atheism was simply, 'the lack of belief in deities/god.' Where does the obligation to 'spread the word' and win people to atheism come from?

There is no atheism bible,code of conduct or guide book.

Infact ironicaly,an atheist can decide to convert people to xtianity,if he feels xtianity is the solution to a distressed person.the way a dad can take his sad 5 yr old to see 'santa' knowing very well that santa is a myth.

My point is,simply by virtue of bein an atheist does not obligate you to anything.Atheism says nothing about how we should handle discrimination, injustices or even how a person should behave.Its simply ' a lack of belief in God. '

Hi guys,i am planning to go for Masters in Feb at a school called London School of Technology and Management.Its located in SE1 Postal area,near the london bridge.

How much is the average cost of student accommodation around Elephant and castle,bankside,lambeth and the adjoining areas?

The college tells me that they provide accomodation which is 40mins commuter time,which to me sounds unacceptable.
Are there nice African Clubs and eateries in that area?

What about employment prospects,i.e part time work.What sort of part-time jobs do Africans in SouthEast london do?

Would anyone know whether there is a sizable kenyan community in SE1?

Hopefully someone will enlighten me,especially in regards to accommodation and part-time work.

Sadly if God does not exist,then the universe will have a very cold death.It has now been confirmed that the expansion of the universe will not stop. Stars will eventually burn out,as energy levels in the universe take a slow nosedive.The universe will be full of black holes of dead stars which have burnt out their energy.Vaccuum fluctuations will continue for sometime but,even those eventually will grind to a halt.At the end of it all,the Universe will be a dark cold freezing place where energy levels will be almost at 0.Meaning no physical activity.But we should not worry,because by estimates of when this ios going to happen are truly staggering.between 400 billion - 1 trillion years from now.

The problem with your idea is that it overlooks one critical factor.For us to "catch up" with the Information that was transmitted 2000 years ago by earth,we have to travel faster than the speed of light. Remember that the information that left earth is traveling at the speed of light,therefore for us to catch up with it,we need to send something which is traveling faster than the speed of light.This is assuming that the information did not stumble upon a black hole and is lost forever.

Secondly,As you know from the theory of special relativity,we canot travel faster than the speed of light. The more you accelerate,the heavier you become,the more energy you need.Its a vicious cycle.

But you can take comfort knowing that we "watch" the past everyday.light from the sun takes 8 mins to reach,meaning everytime you look at it,.your seeing the way it looked 8 minutes ago.Infact if our sun was to suddenly disappear,we would not notice anything until 8 minutes later.

many of the stars in our sky are thousands of light years away.So we are seeing them how they looked thousands or millions of years ago.

@ Atheists,


You need to understand the formulation of the Free Will defense by Alvin Plantinga. Asking questions on "why" does not amount to an argument or even a counterargument. You need to show that God could have created a logically possible and feasible world (earth) where people have significant free will and yet no sin or evil.

There are only 3 options for God.He wants to create a world,

World A

1. People have complete free will and Evil exists.

World B

1. People do not have Free will and evil does not exist.

World C

1. People have complete Free will and evil does not exist.


Now, no one would want to live in world B,we would be mere Robots,and even good actions could not be regarded as good actions since no one can do otherwise.Why would we say eg Not stealing is a good thing,if stealing is a physical impossibility.

The type of world that critics of the Free Will Defense advocate for is world C. This isa logically possible world,but not a feasible world.Something is logically possible if it entails no contradictions.Something is feasible if it can be actualized in reality.

For example,it is logically possible that a tea cup is orbiting Jupiter but its too small to be seen.But we know in reality,there is probably no tea cup orbiting Jupiter.

If God were to create a world with Free people,then He cannot guarantee that every person will not commit atleast 1 evil act in his/her lifetime.Remember if people in world C are to remain truly Free,then god cannot interfere with their choices causally.i.e He cannot make them pick good actions.
Therefore World C is highly unlikely, Where there are free willed people,there is bound to be people choosing to do evil acts.

It seems then God can create only World A.Which is similar to our current world.Where people have complete free will and evil exists.

[QUOTE]Tell me where is the free will of an innocent six year old who is molested by roman catholic priest ? Where is the free will of a young girl in the DRC who is repeatedly despoiled by rebels and infected with aids ? Where is the free will of a small kid who is accused of being a witch by self proclaimed man of god ?[/QUOTE]

These are questions on justice.As you know Christians believe that every person will be brought to book on the day of judgment.And so justice will be served.The victims,if they embrace Christ,will receive eternal life free of suffering.I can't think of a better Judicial System!

But what about Atheism.What does it offer for the Victims or offenders of these heinous crimes?

Am afraid nothing.If Atheism is true,and God does not really exist,then there is no eternal life,and everyone will die.So why should an atheist care if a child is molested?The child will eventually die of old age or some other disease or accident.

5 billion years from now our sun will obliterate the earth and all the planets when it nears its death.

No one will be here to account for anyone sins,let alone the DRC soldiers or victims.If Atheism is true,then in 5 billion years time it will not matter whether you were mother teresa or hitler,no one will be here to account for their actions.It will not make sense to say, " Mother teresa will be remembered for here good actions." because no will be here to remember.If Atheism is true,Hitler,the DRC soldiers the molesting priests and every criminal and sinner will escape with his evils acts in 5 billion years time or sooner if the climate talks are anything to go by.

No one will receive a special reward,not the victims of violence nor the perpetrators.The irony is,no one will be punished either.And to top it all up,no will be here to care.

Thats the hopelessness that Atheism offers.

To muyiwaprin ,

I was in Malaysia for about 3 years.So here is my analysis of the place and hopefully it will guide you and others before you make a decision to go to Malaysia.

Malaysia is quite developed.The infrastructure is great.Smooth roads,efficient public transport and many western food outlets like MaCdonalds,KFC Subway,wendy's among others.

Malaysia has 3 main races,Malays,Chinese and Indians.Malays are traditionally muslims.But,malaysia is a very relaxed country and islamic laws do not affect non-muslims.

getting jobs in malaysia as a foreigner is next to impossible.Students are not allowed to work while studying unless its within the school campus.

The few students jobs that are there are mainly in the hotel industry.(waitressing)The pay is poor and it will not help you sustain yourself.

Students from mostly Kenya and a few,from Nigeria, are into car rental services.They rent a car for a month and then subrent it to other students on a daily basis. This type of business is very lucrative because the demand of cars usually exceeds the supply.Especially on weekends when people want to go out clubbing.Many of my friends have become very well off in the car rental business.With some having a fleet of cars as many as 13.

As with other business the risks are quite high:

1. The business of subletting is technically illegal,since it is not registered and students are not allowed to do business.But enforcement of this law is virtually nonexistent.
2. Car accidents are very common with drunk students.And you may get into trouble once one of your cars gets into an accident with a drunk student.
3. car repair services in malaysia are very expensive.If the car is not insured,you may end up paying for all damages incurred in a car accident which may run into thousands of dollars.

Malaysia has many african students,with Nigerians making up the biggest percentage.Followed by Botswana,kenya and other East African countries.

Most students do not work,but depend on monthly allowance from parents.(with the exception of botswana students who get their allowance from the government).

Therefore,unless you will get into the car business,you will probably not find any work in malaysia.

But,if you are a really good Deejay,then you can find work easily as a dj in one of the clubs wich have weekly African nights.

Since you have indicated that you already have your malaysian visa,then i would advise you to concetrate on getting good grades to further your studies in other countries when your done with malaysia.

Most African students come to malaysia so as to find easy access to other countries.For example the British embassy in Malaysia will grant you a UK VISA within 5 days if all your documents are right.

15 kenyan students from my former college all got their VISA's in 4 days, when i was their 2 months ago.

Unfortunately it might be abit harder for you since you are Nigerian, but way easier than the lagos one.5 of my naija friends were denied their VISas in flimsy grounds.

But this should not discourage you,as long as your documents are good then you will get it.

In conclusion, think of Malaysia as a stepping stone to greater heights rather than the ends itself.

Otherwise good luck in your endeavors

[QUOTE]Hello Easylogic, I think that you are presuming that there has to be a mechanism for everything. Apart from the fact that we instinctive believe that events are brought about by a mechanism there is no actual proof. Why can events not spontaneously occur? Why must there be a mechanism (or process) that brought it about?

Are necessity and contingency really mutually exclusive? [/QUOTE]

Pastor,

I think the law of causality is one of the most basic laws that we have.There is no one who believes that things just pop into existence without a cause.If a coin, rabbit or horse cannot pop into existence uncaused,then why believe that a whole univewrse consisting of all space and matter can do so?

Even if events occur spontaneously,there is no reason to suppose they occured without a cause.The big bang may have occurred spontaneously,but it does not follow that it occurred without a course.

About contingency and necessity,it is pretty obvious that they are opposites.Unless you are using a different meaning of both words.

Thats okay,the real question is whether that is the legitimate website of the school.

Thanks Deepsight and vairo,


Leibniz the german mathematician (17th century)actually asked this question back in the ancient ages,why something exists rather than nothing,and it thus led to the formulation of the leibnizian cosmological argument.

As a theist i can answer why something exists rather than nothing.An eternal God who necessarily exists willed to create the universe.

But for atheist,this question is simply impossible to answer.An atheist cannot say that the universe necessarily exists since we know that all matter which m,akes up the universe is contingent,therefore it follows that the universe is contingent.

By contingent we mean that something can," not exist".i.e we can think of instances where a particular thing would not have existed.The big bang is a prime example of a contingent thing.
Necessary things are those things that exist in every possible scenario or world.For example numbers or logic.It is impossible to think of a universe or possible world where 1+1 is not equal to 2.

therefore philosophers generally agree that things like numbers and logic are necessary.

Therefore the atheist is in a dilemma,he's left with a universe which exists contingently with no reason at all.

He/she is at a loss to explain why there was a bang,rather than no bang,in fact why was there a singularity in the first place.

Most atheist will appeal to the multiverse theory and say that our universe might have been created by a black hole in another universe or something of he sort,but this just pushes he problem a step ahead.Why does a multiverse exist rather than no multiverse?

Man you got to be very careful,The website for the college you are going to sounds very suspicious,simply because it has a .com website.Which suggests it is a commercial website.Most schools in the Uk have a .co.uk address.

http://www.lcbcs.com/


So better check it out at the British high Comm in Nigeria before you pay your tuition fees.

Nice thread.Maybe i could add my thoughts.

Actually time is really not anything! Time is not a thing to be created or not.All references to time are based on the universe.That is,the measurement of change within the universe from the plank time.
Therefore it makes no sense to say Time is eternal or infinite.Since time does not have the property of existence in the way matter of things exists.

And anyway,the big question is not even whether the universe had a beginning,(though all evidence suggestss it had),the deeper question is, Why something rather than nothing exists? Why is there a universe rather than no universe.

[QUOTE]Let's have a short discourse on the most mysterious thing we all know.

TIME.

Time by its very nature seems to be eternal. And for this reason, questions related to Time have always disturbed thinking people: for the simple fact that it seems virtually incomprehensible.

Some people state that Space and Time were created by the Big Bang.

I am not sure that i subscribe to that, because there could be other universes out there, and we cannot suggest that "Time" would not apply to such Universes even before the Big Bang.

Whatever may be said about the nature of time, my concern within this thread is the possibility of time Travel.

Is it possible to travel into the past? Do the known laws of physics preclude this?

For example:

If you run from point-A to point-B and it takes you 1 minute. . . You double your speed and it takes you 30 seconds. . . you double your speed again and it takes you fifteen seconds, we carry on increasing speed up till the point where it takes you no measurable time to arrive at point B. On, and on we increase the speed untill we arrive at a point whereby you arrive at point B at the exact moment that you left point A. Then we increase the speed even more, and then we arrive at a point that you arrive at Point B 1 second before you left Point A. You have crossed the Time Barrier through speed, and you have traveled to the past.

If time travel is possible, would that affect all ideas of God, religion, spirituality, etc?

Any takers?[/QUOTE]

Hi Deepsight,quite an interesting thread.

We have to know what we mean when we talk of time.it is clear;y a very hard concept to define.But one thing is for sure,time is not a thing which sort of controls the flow of events.Time is simply a measure of change.

Infact time and distance sometimes can be used interchangeably.Eg, in ancient times people knew the distances of places by the number of days it would take to reach there.

The laws of physics do not rule out time time travel,especially time travel to the future is very possible.A person moving at the 99% the speed of light,revolving round the earth would experience a delayed progression of time.i.e His clock would move much slower than the clock on earth.Therefore he would be able to cover 100 years on earth in eg a 1 year.

Therefore if he started speeding round the earth in 2009,and stopped to check his time on the spaceship,he would discover that only a year had passed,but once he came down to earth,he would be shocked to find that 100 years have passed.So effectively he has traveled to the future,Though he may not be able to return to the past.

Travel to the past is very highly unlikely.1st,the only way we could travel to the past is either

A) Travel faster than the speed of light. - Which is impossible according to Einsteins law of special relativity.

any attempts to break the light speed barrier would be futile since the faster you move, the more mass you gain and therefore the more energy you need.As you reach 95% the speed of light,you will need more energy and your energy needs will be tending towards infinity.

The only way to reach the speed limit is to be massless!

B) Tunnel our way using wormholes - Which only exist in theory not in reality.And are highly unstable,they would collapse immediately something or someone would try to tunnel his way.

Even ignoring all the hurdles and assuming that Time travel to the past is possible, logic and common sense tells us that the Past does not exist concurrently with the present.

This is a view held by most philosophers and scientists,It is called the A- Theory of time.I.e we experience temporal becoming,i.e, events come into existence and go out of existence as time moves.

Therefore,once we cross over to the next moment of time,the previous moment of time does not still linger on existing.

If you watched a movie yesterday, once today reaches,the event of you watching the movie is no more.it has happened already.

Therefore even if we could somehow break the laws of einstein or find a way to travel faster than the speed of light,there will be nothing to go back to.

Hitler is still not killing the jews in 1938, it already happened.

Therefore,to me it seems pointless asking what Time travel to the past would do to belief in God, and christian doctrines,since it is impossible to travel to the past.

God is uncreated by conceptual neccesity and definition.It is like asking who created the uncreated being.

So i was going through your version of Deism on the other thread and i thought i would try to raise a few points which stick out.I know you said that you were not providing a rational justification for your worldview,but i do believe it is tantamount that one's beliefs should atleast be internally consistent and better yet,map to reality.

You said in the other thread:

I do not believe that God is impersonal, although i am certain that God's core, is absolutely unknowable and unnapproachable.A deep mystery beyond all time and all space.

What do you mean by God's core?do you mean God's nature or purpose?And when you say that its unapproachable and unknowable do you mean,that there is no way that humans can come to know this God personally?

but later on in the same post you said

I called myself an empirical and intuitive Deist. . . empirical because i strongly believe that the existence of the Supreme Deity can be logically deduced or inferred. . . intuitive because i believe that a spark of the creator-nature residing within each human being, can lead one to intuitively sense the things of God, even as the greatest simpleton on earth, without the need for advanced thinking.

While i do agree that a Deist god can be logically inferred from logical deductions supported by empirical evidence from our universe - such as a first cause argument- , according to your first statement,a deist god is inherently unknowable.therefore it seems that humans possessing an intuitive knowledge of the deist god as you say in your second statement seems to be contradicting your initial position that a deist god is ultimately unknowable.

Unless your initial statement meant that God's true nature is unknowable,hence what we possess is a sort of feeling that there is a God but who's nature is unknowable.For example,A person can posses an intuitive feeling that Aliens do ewxist,without an idea of how exactly those aliens look like.

Is this what you mean when you say God's core is unknowable?

[QUOTE]Space. . . Infinite. . .

Time. . . Eternal. . .

Thus an infinite still oneness of infinity.

That oneness of infinity is a singularity, an absolute oneness of all.[/QUOTE]

This to me doesn't really make alot of sense.As a desit you ought to belief that Space and time are finite.After all,God did create Space and timeunles you are using these words as metaphors.Maybe you could elaborate.

[QUOTE]That absolute oneness of infinity, is thus a reality that needn't be caused. It is real, permanent, extant, and since infinite, is inherently in itself all things that could ever be. That oneness of Infinity, is what i understand to be God.[/QUOTE]

I am not sure what you mean when you use infinity.Are you saying that reality is infinite?And when you talk of reality do you mean the universe?
This is because when you say infinity is God,it makes no sense to me.because,infinity is simply a mathematical concept.If infinity = God,then god is a mathematical concept.mathematical concepts do not stand in causal relations.that is,mathematical concepts do not cause anything.hence,God could not have caused the universe to come into existence.

[QUOTE]Because God is Infinite then, he carries within his core the following -

   1. Perfection (Oneness implies no deviation or variation and is the ultimate perfection. But this is a deep area, it is not perfection as conceived by the Abrahamic religions, it is the perfection of a singularity)

  2. Eternity

  3. The In-substantiate Imprimatur for everything that exists.

Given God's eternal nature, everything that lies within him expresses itself.[/QUOTE]

remember your first statement was that God's core is unknowable?but then it seems you have gone ahead and explained god's core in the above statement.How did you come across this knowledge if God's core is unknowable?How do you know that God is perfection etc etc?

Even assuming for a moment that we could know God's core,how would we know it?Since this deist God has not sent a prophet or messenger or teacher or even revealed himself in any scripture,how would we know His intentions?What if he simply doesn't care what we do?or worse still what if he is a tyrant and his actually the cause of all the suffering that we are going through? How would we know anything about the nature of this God apart from the fact that he created the universe?

[QUOTE]Everything that exists, therefore, exists within God'S IN-SUBSTANTIATE MIND, or as an expression of that Mind.

Harmony.

Because God is a singularity, he connotes oneness and therefore perfect harmony. This is why all things in nature strive towards harmony.

And this forms the basis for the human conscience.

Human Beings are Spirit Sparks emerging from the Light of God (all things emerge from God). Initially unconscious, we live within creation striving towards perfection and harmony. God, in his perfect grace, allows this process to be a difficult and even tortuous one, thus permitting the human spirit develop, grow, and form its own complete consciousness within reality.

Life is a dream. And its going on in the ultimate mind. God's mind. That mind is reality.

Because that mind is infinite, it contains all things, good and evil, and thus Good and Evil will always express themselves in creation.

This leads to balance, and also, ultimately, strives towards perfection - towards God.
[/QUOTE]

Again,how do we know all this since the deist God has not revealed anything about his attitudes towards man,nor nature.We might be suffering simply because he doesn't care what is happening to us,and he has let nature to run it course.

I know you said that you will not defend your position,but i raised some of those points so that atleast you can reflect on your own worldview and see if it is consistent with itself.As far as i can tell it is highly contradictory,in one instance God i a singularity,in the other he's infinity.In other areas you are able to explain his purpose and nature,and in other areas he's unknowable.This worldview also entails claims that do not map onto reality.Equaling god to a singularity does not really make sense since we know a singularity is material which is finite.Singularities do not possess such attributes as perfection,purpose or eternity.

Sorry for the long post.It is okay Deep Sight if you will not reply to the post.This post was jnot meant as a debate or form of argument.Just expressing my thoughts on your worldview.

Actually DNA has never been proven to be produced by natural selection nor evolution.The initial theory was that Clay gave birth to RNA which formed DNA and later somehow arranged themselves to form protein molecules.But all the experiments done using Amino acids have failed to yield life.

Infact even taking a living cell and poking it so that it spews all its content in a glass tube and living it there for a couple of days or months,will still not yield life.this is puzzling since,essentially you will be having all the ingredients of a cell in the test tube,but still unable to produce life.

Various highly qualified researchers feel they have scientifically proved, beyond question, that the proteins needed for life could never have come into existence by chance or any natural processes.



Famous bio-chemist Dr. Wilder-Smith concluded that:

“It is emphatically the case that life could NOT arise spontaneously in a primeval soup of this kind."

Deep Sight,

Thnk you for taking time to reply to my post.I must say that your brand of deism is quite a handful!

Many deists would not call you a deist.Infact the strict traditional definition of a deist is an impersonal creator,or "the unmoved mover" as Aristotle put it.Deist such as Anthony flew ( who was once an Atheist now a deist),believe that this creator simply set everything up and stepped back.

Your form of Deism sounds abit like pantheism mixed with Theism.

And i find little grounds to disagree with you.Ofcourse except the purpose of mankind and the true nature of God.

Maybe i might take time to scrutinize your view and see if it is internally consistent,then if it maps to reality.

Actually i am a new user,though i have visited the forum a couple of times as a visitor.I came across Deep Sights comments as a Deist on the thread about Christianity being rubbish.(i think).In am usually interested in Philosophy especially philosophy of religion.

Hi Deep sight,am new to the forum and i saw in one of the threads you indicated that you are a deist.I have to say deists are a hard bunch to find.Just had some questions and points i would like to raise about deism.

Deism is the belief that an impersonal creator of the universe exists.i.e god simply created the universe and let it to run its course.He does not intervene in human affairs,nor intervene in the cosmos.He sort of,put everything in place and pressed the start button and went to sleep.

Arguments against desim are quite hard since deism entails very minimalistic propositions.

But according to me,i believe that deism is highly unlikely and lacks explanatory power.It raises more questions than answers.

This is why,assuming that deism is true,and a god actually created the universe and "let it be" we are left wondering

1.Why? why did he create anything at all?or there is no reason why he created the universe i.e it was simply arbitrary?

2.Contrary to deistic claims that the God in deism is impersonal,the simple act of creation proves that he's personal.

The Theist and Deist will agree on the following proposition:

A creator god who exists brought the universe into existence.

The task is to find out what characteristic this God might have,and ultimately determine whether He's personal or impersonal.

The following seem to be true:

1.He's immaterial - since all matter came into existence with the big bang,then this god must be immaterial otherwise he would also need a cause for his existence.

2. He's timeless - Since time began with the universe,this being must have existed outside of time.

3.uncaused - An infinite temporal regress of causes cannot exist.

4.Intelligent - for him to set all those laws of the universe he must be very intellligent.

5.very powerful - The big bang was the other of all explosions.equivalent to trillions of atomic bombs all firing at the same time.For a being to bring such activate such an act he must the very powerful.

6.Personal - this is the contentious part.But i'll demonstrate why it follows from the the simple act of creation that these being must be personal.

Why should the cause of the universe be personal?

1. The only things we know that are immaterial are abstract objects such as numbers and the mind.But abstract objects do not stand in Causal relations.Therefore the transcendent Cause of the universe must be a Mind.
2. Free Agent or Impersonal Mechanical Cause?
Trying to account for a temporal effect from a timeless Cause which is mechanical is problematic. if it was a mechanical cause,then the Cause could never exist independent from its effect,for if the sufficient condition of the effect is given,then the effect must be given as well.
The only way for the cause to be timeless but for its effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely choses to create an effect without any determinant conditions.

Therefore it follows that the creator of the universe is a personal being.But,i am aware,that some deists would agree with everything i said.Their disclaimer might be be that,they simply dont believe that this God created humans or intervenes in worldly affairs.

So we would end up having a personal God,who does not intervene in human affairs.

To me,this sounds very implausible. It would draw us back to question number 1,Why?why create anything at all if he will not get involved in his creation.Since we have established that he freely chose to create the universe and everything in it,even humans (by process of evolution), it seems more likely that he had a reason for creating.

It sounds rather unconvincing that a being who has lived in a timeless state would simpy create a universe with moral human beings for NO REASON.

And finally, the argument from morality demonstrates that objective morals exists and thus necessitate a moral law giver who is God. ( I would not mind discussing this point in another thread).

In conclusion, I think Deism stands accused of lacking explanatory power and not standing up to philosophical scrutiny.I don't see how Deism can answer the "Why" despite arguments that i have stated above indicating that this "god" intended and consequently created a universe with moral creatures.

Hopefully Deep Sight you will be able to shed more light.