Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (23547)	5/14/2006 3:17:58 AM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 28931

<It wasn't an observation.> Was so! DAK

To: Solon who wrote (23547)	5/14/2006 8:31:46 AM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Just reading this calvinist fellow Alvin Plantinga Ph.d ...... "the most important philosopher of religion now writing." "Theism, Atheism, and Rationality"... origins.org This little essay of his has me baffled, for he describes why such constructions of belief have their roots rising out of the original quiet hysteria of mans fear & helplessness of being set adrift and confronted constantly by a vast disinterested world that displays not the slightest awareness towards his well being . This Ph.d gives here a series of the most well constructed thoughts of exactly why such belief in divine " Father" is anything but the natural response to such sensation of a threatening chaotic impersonal world , originating in times where the knowledge of science and reason was scarce , and disasters natural and of his own making were a constant. What could i possibly be missing here ? Even in his attempts to invite proof from the atheist , he proves the atheist's basic premise by his own reasoning & example ? Its somewhat humorous to me , but reading him I see so clearly why nothing could be more "natural" as part of mans' evolution , than the invention of religion. At least that's what my instinct would tell me , and also the draw of an inutitive "noetic appeal ". And he finishes his gentle circular tautology with the defense that it isn't his (the believers) cognitive equipment that is faulty , for such cognitive faculties operating as "The Father" intended them to function , must need be functioning properly . (oh boy , that's a great proof there , thank god these fellows don't ever get Ph.d's in engineering <G>) The essay ends not in the middle , but out on the circumference of opposites once again: The atheist evidential objector, however, owes us an account of this notion. What does he mean when he complains that the theist without evidence displays a cognitive defect of some sort? How does he understand the notion of cognitive malfunction? I think that Thomas Jefferson had a great answer for him several hundred years ago ...or Asimov To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

To: Solon who wrote (23547)	5/14/2006 9:00:06 AM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

More from Alvin Platinga Ph.d , "greatest religious thinker of our time" .... i probably would like the fellow as a human being , but what he is trying to prove it seems is just utterly cracked to me <G> en.wikipedia.org " Argument that evolutionary naturalism is incoherent " Plantinga has argued that evolutionary naturalism is incoherent[1]. To this end, he quotes Darwin as follows: With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind...? — Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881. In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin (London: John Murray, Albermarle Street, 1887), Volume 1, pp. 315-316. No , Alvin , because we did evolve from the lower primates , we had done just what such magnificently ignorant children do that hadn't barely invented the shovel or wheel barrows yet but were beginning to . Just beginning to grasp the vaster concepts of time and space beyond the limits of the next valley or two , or making marks on stone walls to track the passing of the days and months. We invented systems of oral folktales of Gods and magical solutions dreamed up by none other than our very own primitive selves . Why would we trust the monkey's mind ? Because it is the precursor to our own perhaps? And then again ---->Why would we trust some the earliest scribings of primitive bronze age human relatives living 4000yrs ago ? This is his proof ? It would be easier just to say that all life being part of the same tree shares in the same consciousness to a more or lessor degree , and the entire planet is "aware" , than to follow the restrictions of his line of thought . If you are going to believe in a supreme "Being/ Mind/Diety " , you might as well jump into the well with both feet....and love it all ! ;-)

To: Solon who wrote (23547)	5/14/2006 9:38:41 AM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

In that link to Alvin Platinga he cites a Canadian-American professor of Philosophy @ San Diego .... Patricia Smith Churchland en.wikipedia.org here she is again "Closer to Truth Forum" closertotruth.com Patricia Smith Churchland is professor of philosophy at the University of California at San Diego, where she focuses on the foundations of neuroscience and psychology. She has written extensively on how empirical research in these sciences helps to solve, or to restructure, traditional problems in the philosophy of mind, and to explore the changes in our self-conception that such research may provoke. Books include: Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain; The Computational Brain; and The Mind-Brain Continuum. Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain ? Oh here we go again , into the great Mind_Meld Unified Field Continuum and beyond !... ( Dak's molecules will be ecstatic ) lol