Negative atheism? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, December 12, 2014, 00:09 (3424 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:Chance itself is a cause. In any case, if you accept cause and effect, you can hardly insist that our consciousness must have a cause whereas your God's has none.- My God is a universal consciousness. And in theology/philosophy he is considered an uncaused cause. He is the one eternal item that brings all the rest, unless you want to go back to something from nothing, which makes no sense at all. Something started cause and effect. That is why Einstein did not want to give up an eternal universe and produced his cosmologic constant to get rid of it. He admitted it was his biggest mistake of his life.- 
> dhw: Open-mindedness - a term you scrupulously avoid using - is in my view a positive and not a negative attribute. Living with open-mindedness is therefore a positive and not a negative situation, leading to a positive approach, even if the results remain neutral.-That is fine for you. I don't need that approach anymore. In the 1980's, while on river rafting trips I started reading books on particle physics and then current cosmology. I was an agnostic with a very open mind. It took me about three years of delving into those current sciences and I was a believer. Later when I reviewed Darwin and realized on what very thin legs his theory stood, it just reinforced my original conclusions. I can make up my mind, and did. I found enough evidence.
 
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> dhw: I take “supernatural” to mean phenomena for which we have no explanation.-So do I.-> dhw: Supposing consciousness were to be a form of energy that manipulates our brain cells instead of emerging out of them? We would have to change our concept of what is “natural”, and the ramifications could cover many phenomena which at present people would call “supernatural”.-Looking at consciousness is a good choice for discussion. We don't know how it works, we don't know if it 'emerges' from brain cells, or brain cells act as a receiver for consciousness which arrives like radio waves from the quantum layer of each human person (the soul in religion). Quantum theory is half-supernatural as it is now, and might always stay that way. At that level of our knowledge the boundary is very smudged. If the boundary never changes, suddenly the supernatural is part of our regular lives. And that concept is why I keep presenting quantum weirdness. I am frankly convinced that is the way God works. Please note, it is easy for me to reach conclusions that make sense to me. Your brain and my bran are built differently. Perhaps it is my medical training which taught me to reach solutions to mysteries.-> David: Just like each molecule is thoughtfully following a job description. This is the 'sentience' you keep bringing up.[/i]
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> dhw: I have been following these posts with interest. They do indeed describe the chemical processes that lead to and accompany sentience. And as always, you assume that this sentience is enough to justify your claim that cells are automatons. But cells use their sentience, just as we do. They take decisions.-Of course they do. That is what I have shown. But they do not have 'thinking ability' in any sense as we do. This is molecules responding to molecules, a truly amazing arrangement. -> 
> dhw: Why make a choice (a) if you don't have to, and (b) if the alternatives seem equally unlikely?-It all depends on 'unlikely' to whom?
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> dhw: Why do you feel this need to make a judgement? You believe, atheists disbelieve, and agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve. Can't we leave it at that?-I think we can leave it at that. I do feel I have done enough reasoning to make a judgment.