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Can science prove or disprove "God"?


nephili

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10 hours ago, Will Due said:

Well, I'm not sure much in life is fair.

Personally I'm beyond certain. But if ever there was one with rebellion in his soul against God's existence, it was me. I finally could not continue one day when my exhaustion with it brought me to dare to contenplate the joy that God did exist, and that he cared about me.

It was only a matter of minutes later that I felt he had interjected in my life to let me know he was there and that he was pleased that I excersised my faith.

It was a sudden conversion which I believe happened because I finally forgot myself. I stopped thinking for just long enough that my life wasn't fair and accepted it, that life is joyful, which was probably the first time I had done that. I must have given thanks to God in some way, but didn't know I did, until some minutes later.

 

 

I am glad to hear that the angst you struggled with turned into a perspective change that has led to peaceful times for you. 

 

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19 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

I have a tape measure and scale, go ahead bring one of those mental constructs by, I'll verify it for you.:lol:

jmccr8

Well, we didn't have go down that path.B)

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45 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

I have a tape measure and scale, go ahead bring one of those mental constructs by, I'll verify it for you.:lol:

jmccr8

You only need a mental construct of your tape measure and scale. :) 

But seriously, have you ever encountered a living dragon? No, of course not, yet see a picture of one, read a description of one, or hear someone describe one, and you recognise it, because you share a similar mental construct of what a dragon is and, significantly, what it is not.

Mental constructs exist physically, and can be measured as patterns of neural energy and activity. You'd need an advanced mri or more sophisticated machine rather than a tape and scale.  They can even be recorded , but their greatest power lies in the way people respond to an internal construct. This response is FAR more powerful than our response to external realities. How do you know that love and hate exist, and are real things? 

 

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53 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

I have that and really didn't need to make a mental construct of a god to achieve it.

jmccr8

I am sure you have. That  is  even clear to me, but other posters state that they do not, and that indeed there is no  inherent point to life, or existence, and that humans have no particular purpose or reason for existence.

It must be hard just getting up each morning if that is a genuine and deep seated belief.

 I never mentioned religion,  and , while faith spirituality and belief provide strong inner reasons for living,  so do other ethical and moral values, including many from secular humanism.  What "you" do need to do is construct a mental  construct of some kind which gives "you" purpose and direction for your life.

Edited by Mr Walker
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3 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

I am sure you have. That  is  even clear to me but other posters state that they do not and that indeed there is no  inherent point to life or existence and that humans have no particular purpose or reason for existence. It must be hard just getting up each morning if that is a genuine and deep seated belief. 

I find a certain nobility in that sort of fatalistic acceptance. If they are decent, honorable, well-adjusted and happy, then it serves them well. Whether or not I agree or disagree with their stance is not germane to the issue.

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2 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

You only need a mental construct of your tape measure and scale. :)

I build real things in the real world and us real tools to do it, I leave the fictional constructs up to the guys that can't build real things, like draftsmen or in some cases daftsmen.

5 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

But seriously, have you ever encountered a living dragon? No, of course not, yet see a picture of one, read a description of one, or hear someone describe one, and you recognise it, because you share a similar mental construct of what a dragon is and, significantly, what it is not.

I see fictional creatures as just that, not real so any description of them is pointless to me in the real world.

7 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Mental constructs exist physically, and can be measured as patterns of neural energy and activity. You'd need an advanced mri or more sophisticated machine rather than a tape and scale.  They can even be recorded , but their greatest power lies in the way people respond to an internal construct. This response is FAR more powerful than our response to external realities. How do you know that love and hate exist, and are real things?

If they can't be seen, felt, smelt or heard they do not exist in the physical world which is why I use tools that measure , bend, beat and shape things that can be seen in the real world. I don't pretend to use them or build them.

jmccr8

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2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

For every individual it is what we believe it to be. My question would be,  ' Who will have the better outcomes in life; a person who believes they have no  purpose, or a person who has a strong inherent sense of their purpose and reason for being?" 

I was wondering what's the Truth of Life according to Xenofish because he seems good at pointing out the 'nonsense' in others' beliefs but when confronted about his own worldview, he either choose not to respond or go with the whole 'I don't care' teenage-style attitude.

Edited by Be.cause
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11 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

 What "you" do need to do is construct a mental  construct of some kind which gives "you" purpose and direction for your life.

Really, well what "you" need to do is realize that I see a value in who I am and it is me the physical guy the enjoys the physical activities and and challenges that make me who I am, I didn't have to create a mental construct of jmccr8 because the real one is so much fun.:D

jmccr8

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13 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

I find a certain nobility in that sort of fatalistic acceptance. If they are decent, honorable, well-adjusted and happy, then it serves them well. Whether or not I agree or disagree with their stance is not germane to the issue.

I just find it sad, and a diminishment of human potential, but then i simply can't comprehend it  other than intellectually.

I cant see how one can be happy, or even content, without purpose. it is one of the known psychological needs required for human happiness and contentment   Why continue to exist if there is no purpose to your existence.?

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Just now, Mr Walker said:

I just find it sad, and a diminishment of human potential, but then i simply can't comprehend it  other than intellectually.

I cant see how one can be happy, or even content, without purpose. it is one of the known psychological needs required for human happiness and contentment   Why continue to exist if there is no purpose to your existence.?

Life itself is their purpose, as it is of all who live. They neither see nor seek anything beyond it and live it to the full. Thus was the stance of much of humanity prior to the Christian era. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

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8 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

Really, well what "you" need to do is realize that I see a value in who I am and it is me the physical guy the enjoys the physical activities and and challenges that make me who I am, I didn't have to create a mental construct of jmccr8 because the real one is so much fun.:D

jmccr8

The you was in commas to show this is not directed a t you, but at the generic reader. I is a comment  about all humans who do require a purpose for existence,  or why exist?  You have explained your constructed purpose and reason for existing and as i said i could already identify it in you.  

This is it  me the physical guy the enjoys the physical activities and and challenges that make me who I am,

This IS a conscious mental construct,  giving you an aim, a purpose, and a reason for living.  It is a good one My own incorporates the idea of always improving and learning and trying new challenges  But i underpin this with the idea that this then enables me to do more to help others and to change the world for the better. 

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2 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Life itself is their purpose, as it is of all who live. They neither see nor seek anything beyond it and live it to the full. Thus was the stance of much of humanity prior to the Christian era. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Not the people I am speaking of.  They dont see an innate purpose in life either.  They usually do not live life to the full, although they may adopt a hedonistic or sybaritic lifestyle to prevent ennui and boredom  Eating drinking and being merry arent living life to the full Indeed the y are quite shallow and pointless.  Of course, long ago, if you had the resources to be able to eat drink and be merry, you were a lucky man and so this was a legitimate goal. to gather the resources to do this. . . 

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1 minute ago, Mr Walker said:

Not the people I am speaking of.  They dont see an innate purpose in life either.  They usually do not live life to the full, although they may adopt a hedonistic or sybaritic lifestyle to prevent ennui and boredom  Eating drinking and being merry arent living life to the full Indeed the y are quite shallow and pointless.  Of course, long ago, if you had the resources to be able to eat drink and be merry, you were a lucky man and so this was a legitimate goal. to gather the resources to do this. . . 

It is not your prerogative nor is it mine to speak for others and the path they have chosen to walk in life, only our own. If we are contented with the road we travel, we can only hope to influence others by the example, which they may choose or choose not to follow.. I am here neither to preach nor proselyte, only to share what I hold dear with others. 

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26 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

I build real things in the real world and us real tools to do it, I leave the fictional constructs up to the guys that can't build real things, like draftsmen or in some cases daftsmen.

I see fictional creatures as just that, not real so any description of them is pointless to me in the real world.

If they can't be seen, felt, smelt or heard they do not exist in the physical world which is why I use tools that measure , bend, beat and shape things that can be seen in the real world. I don't pretend to use them or build them.

jmccr8

You cant build something without first constructing the idea of it in your head.   Until you build it it IS a fictional construct.

However i understand your perspective I once boarded with a family where none of the four  young boys/men ever read.  I Asked why Their explanation was "that books are not real and i am only interested in what is real "

Of course they probably NEVER realised that most of what is real to a person isn't what exists outside them but what exists in their mind. 

So you argue that love is not real, that hate is not real, that anger is not real and that joy is not real ?

Using your definition, one cannot   see smell or hear those things, although you can see them acting within your brain as electro chemical patterns.

 Strange isn't it how things you might consider unreal have far more influence on the world than most real things. . 

How would you go about crafting a  dragon as a gift,  using steel wood or stone, without  a non real mental construct to guide you?. Indeed how would you build a motor,  without an internal, non real, non physically existent  mental construct of how to do so? How do you know how much pressure or heat to apply, without a  non physical,  mental construct, to inform you . 

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8 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

The you was in commas to show this is not directed a t you, but at the generic reader. I is a comment  about all humans who do require a purpose for existence,  or why exist?  You have explained your constructed purpose and reason for existing and as i said i could already identify it in you.  

This is it  me the physical guy the enjoys the physical activities and and challenges that make me who I am,

This IS a conscious mental construct,  giving you an aim, a purpose, and a reason for living.  It is a good one My own incorporates the idea of always improving and learning and trying new challenges  But i underpin this with the idea that this then enables me to do more to help others and to change the world for the better. 

And when I am talking about when people make mental constructs of who they are they are fabrications of identity, I enjoy those external and real experiences because it is my nature to do so. Was born with a knack for physically building things, when I was a child if I broke my toys I was told that I wouldn't get more toys and learned how to carefully take them apart and re-assemble them, external threat external toy and a natural curiosity and dexterity to learn it is who I am always have and will be.

jmccr8

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1 minute ago, Mr Walker said:

You cant build something without first constructing the idea of it in your head.   Until you build it it IS a fictional construct.

However i understand your perspective I once boarded with a family where none of the four  young boys/men ever read.  I Asked why Their explanation was "that books are not real and i am only interested in what is real "

Of course they probably NEVER realised that most of what is real to a person isn't what exists outside them but what exists in their mind. 

So you argue that love is not real, that hate is not real, that anger is not real and that joy is not real ?

Using your definition, one cannot   see smell or hear those things, although you can see them acting within your brain as electro chemical patterns.

 Strange isn't it how things you might consider unreal have far more influence on the world than most real things. . 

How would you go about crafting a  dragon as a gift,  using steel wood or stone, without  a non real mental construct to guide you?. Indeed how would you build a motor,  without an internal, non real, non physically existent  mental construct of how to do so? How do you know how much pressure or heat to apply, without a  non physical,  mental construct, to inform you . 

Now you're off on a tangent and attributing words of your own to be mine, which they are not. Everything we know, everything we perceive is in our heads. Everything in this gigantic artifact we call civilization was first inside someone's head before it was created.

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5 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

You cant build something without first constructing the idea of it in your head.   Until you build it it IS a fictional construct.

Of course I visualize,but I had to first take something real/physical apart in order to understand it's components, build things that I was shown and read diagrams and spec sheets all of those things were external. and yes a creative mind creates based on what they know of the physical world. If I read a book to gain knowledge I can feel the book, turn it's pages see the contrast of the words on the page they are real physical experiences that help me visualize and understand because for the most part I have been self educated, I didn't build a mental construct of the book, or the motor they exist and I made them a part of myself.

jmccr8

 

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32 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

It is not your prerogative nor is it mine to speak for others and the path they have chosen to walk in life, only our own. If we are contented with the road we travel, we can only hope to influence others by the example, which they may choose or choose not to follow.. I am here neither to preach nor proselyte, only to share what I hold dear with others. 

But don't forget this important notion: Beyond the idea that you are an amazing creator, inventor and designer, that you have the ability to write your own gospel and live your own myth, and that is that Philip K. Dick contented that our divine spark was actually our ability to have empathy. And unlike Ridley Scott he didn't agree that Androids could have empathy, since it was the one thing that couldn't be manufactured in the material realms. Empathy was divine and empathy came from beyond.

Edited by Be.cause
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22 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Using your definition, one cannot   see smell or hear those things, although you can see them acting within your brain as electro chemical patterns

Yes and they are still imaginary because they do not exist in a real form and that is where they remain in the realm of fantasy, and they are not my constructs but the construct of and external stimuli like a book that I can touch or a movie that I can see.

26 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

How would you go about crafting a  dragon as a gift,  using steel wood or stone, without  a non real mental construct to guide you?. Indeed how would you build a motor,  without an internal, non real, non physically existent  mental construct of how to do so? How do you know how much pressure or heat to apply, without a  non physical,  mental construct, to inform you

SEE ABOVE, and if it is a motor or a house or any of the other things I build it is because I have had a physical experience of them.

jmccr8

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31 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

So you argue that love is not real, that hate is not real, that anger is not real and that joy is not real ?

Where did I say that, you know better than that based on previous discussions, they are real because one can see their effects and expressions. if your going to work with solvents or certain glues you really should wear a mask otherwise one could be affected with hallucinations.

jmccr8

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It seems to almost a complaint that some of us see no inherent meaning in life, no reason behind anything and no point to it all. To them I suppose it looks like nihilism. For me it's freedom. I do not have to define myself, I can be fluid in thought. Whatever purpose I find to living is what I've give to it for that moment. For myself the meaning of life can be to simply live it. I've got the choice of suicide or the slow death of living. So I live. Life doesn't have to have some gradiose meaning. We have a tendency to over-complicate everything. A child tends to live in the moment. For some reason we adults forget how to do this. We become a thing, a cog in the machine of society and lose what sense of self we had. Freedom then becomes an illusion and life a prison. So we struggle to reclaim that freedom by giving into fantasy. Creating world views based on myth as a means of escaping our drab lives. I call these religions. To some they build up the followers sense of self importance on a "cosmic scale". Making them more "important" than their fellow humans. It's an escape. So though, it amplifies good qualities and they stay grounded with it. It doesn't (at least it seems) take over their lives. 

An objective god will probably never be proven, neither with the subjective god. All we see are the results of belief even lack of belief. I do not care what you believe, by please quit treating it like an absolute truth, because it isn't. To you it can be, to the rest of us it isn't. Do what you will, but harm none. Believe what you'd like, but harm none. In other words, "Harm None." 

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6 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

And when I am talking about when people make mental constructs of who they are they are fabrications of identity, I enjoy those external and real experiences because it is my nature to do so. Was born with a knack for physically building things, when I was a child if I broke my toys I was told that I wouldn't get more toys and learned how to carefully take them apart and re-assemble them, external threat external toy and a natural curiosity and dexterity to learn it is who I am always have and will be.

jmccr8

I get a kick out of the "real" things also but maybe even more from the mental constructs you have to crete in order to build anything  eg I loved making things as a kid and adolescent  like a braking parachute for our bikes our own skateboards surf boards  etc. but the most fun part was the imagination and creative design and the calculations which were required to do things like make your own explosives fuses timing devices and delayed chemical timers from scratch; and design and test different fuels in rockets you built yourself  I hate to admit that apart from toys I mostly made weapons of all sorts   This required a detailed conceptual knowledge of lots of things like physics yet all the time i was calculating velocity  trajectory   range etc it never entered my head that i ws doing physics or maths. It was just fun.  Using all the stuff we made was also fun 

I appreciate the bit about toys and their care  We got a couple of really good toys each year, mostly things dad had made himself and they often  lasted us into adulthood. 

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5 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Where did I say that, you know better than that based on previous discussions, they are real because one can see their effects and expressions. if your going to work with solvents or certain glues you really should wear a mask otherwise one could be affected with hallucinations.

jmccr8

Ah but that was my point and it wasnt really meant to trap you. You can know god constructs  are real when you see the effect the y have on people.  A person who knows god knows them like they know love or hate or anger or joy even IF they dont know them in the flesh. 

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5 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Yes and they are still imaginary because they do not exist in a real form and that is where they remain in the realm of fantasy, and they are not my constructs but the construct of and external stimuli like a book that I can touch or a movie that I can see.

SEE ABOVE, and if it is a motor or a house or any of the other things I build it is because I have had a physical experience of them.

jmccr8

No they arent imaginary, if they are measurable energy forms, or patterns of neurological  response in the brain

 That IS the real form of things like love or hate.  They are physical energy forms and patterns which can be  seen, measured, recorded,  reproduced, and examined

I will have to take your word for it that you never build anything creative from an imagined or created construct in your mind.

 It still seems likely that you first imagine a mental construct of something you are going to build, and visualise both what it will look like and how you will build it

 Can you only build or make something you have previous physical experience with?  Some people do this, while others like my dad, imagine visualise and create from scratch,  hence the marvelous things he built us and the two story A frame holiday shack he designed and built, beginning from his imagination.    

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6 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Of course I visualize,but I had to first take something real/physical apart in order to understand it's components, build things that I was shown and read diagrams and spec sheets all of those things were external. and yes a creative mind creates based on what they know of the physical world. If I read a book to gain knowledge I can feel the book, turn it's pages see the contrast of the words on the page they are real physical experiences that help me visualize and understand because for the most part I have been self educated, I didn't build a mental construct of the book, or the motor they exist and I made them a part of myself.

jmccr8

 

LOl I worked your posts backwards this time and in this post you have just answered a couple of the questions i asked.

 I actually admire you if you first have to have a real model to pull apart before you build. You are then achieving something from a much more difficult base   Everything i built I had just read about and had to work from inside my head using theoretical knowldge and then experimenting, by trial and error, to creatively design things like functional long bows,  cross bows  ballista,  heavy long range catapults  etc.  rockets and explosives. i certainly never had the opportunity to see examples of the real thing  i rarely even had a chance to see diagrams or plans or pictures or formulae.

 I would argue that what you call visualisation, is what i would call creating a mental construct.  I build mine up from scratch, using individual  mental  components, and while i cant see them in my mind I know how and why they will work . 

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