Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 17:33 (5491 days ago) @ Frank Paris

Frank: "It is raining and the humidity pattern is 5%." If it is true that it is raining but false that the humidity is 5%, then the quoted statement as a whole is false.-I suspect that most of us would say that half the statement is true and half is false.-The insurance man rang the front doorbell. Frank opened the door.
"Hi," said the insurance man. "Quick, ring for the fire brigade. The back of your house is on fire, and the house is worth $100,000."
"No it isn't," said Frank. "It's worth $150,000, and therefore the whole of your statement is false."
They chatted for half an hour, moving further and further down the street as the heat and noise grew more intense, and Frank lectured the insurance salesman on Aristotelian logic and Boolean algebra. He finally went home feeling pretty damned pleased with himself. He now lives in a very large urn.-Frank: If I ever accepted Dawkins' statement you quote I must have been smoking some illegal weed that was addling my brain. -I think nearly all our misunderstandings have arisen out of various statements you made on your remarkable (smoke-filled?) debut, on Saturday 24 October at 19.23, when you repeatedly agreed with Dawkins and with atheist statements such as: "The truth is that there is nothing but the physical world". If you read through the first two-thirds of that post, I think you'll see just why we've had to spend so much time sorting out what you meant. You have now done so to a large degree, for which many thanks. I still have a few comments, though.-1) Life by accident or design? Your basic response seems to be that you don't know. A good agnostic position! However, your statement that it has nothing to do with theology is another Parisian surprise. I think anything that concerns God's relationship with the world and humanity is of vital theological concern. You propose a loving God who wants to see his own reflection in the universe. Others might argue that if he deliberately designed life as it is, he's responsible for the suffering of all living creatures. That's what I took to be the originality of your theology: God didn't make us, so he's not responsible. Naturally, you will stand by that. I'm only questioning your dismissal of the issue as irrelevant to theology.-2) Your various statements agreeing with Dawkins (I have to get that dig in) that there is nothing but the physical world apparently mean: "all the efficient causes in the universe are physically based", whereas "God's consciousness could not be physical." Now you're drawing a much clearer picture, and it's rather more conventional than the one you drew initially. In your theology, there is a distinction between God's infinite, non-physical consciousness and the physical world, even if they're inextricably connected. You have, however, neatly attempted to turn the tables on me: "You're trying to reduce religious experience to something finite just because it is grounded in something finite (the three pound lump of physical mush we call a brain)." It's the exact opposite. I've been trying to counter your apparent insistence that there is nothing outside the physical world by pinning you down on whether you think God's consciousness is physical or not. On October 28 at 14.26 I explained that one reason why I could not embrace atheism was such unexplained phenomena as "consciousness, ideas, imagination, apparently paranormal acquisition of knowledge" etc. I could have added mystic experiences. There's been a discussion between Matt, George and myself concerning science's ignorance of the nature and origin of consciousness, in which I've been arguing the possibility (no more) that it may not be ENTIRELY biological. This might tie in with the possibility (no more) of a non-physical consciousness called God. (I've just read Matt's latest on this, and will reply in due course.)-The fact that in some people the finite conscious sometimes "breaks through" into other dimensions, and experiences an "All is One" etc., is familiar to me. I too have experienced this sense of absolute unity and of overwhelming love, but crucially ... and this may seem as weird to you as my failure to respond to (most of) Bach ... it does not need God. It may come from a god or it may not. It's akin to Dawkins' sense of wonderment, and to aspects of Buddhism. BBella's comment on the universality of such experiences is certainly spot on. Unfortunately, this is also balanced by less joyous sensations when confronted by the vast scale of human (and animal) suffering.-The trick "up my sleeve" concerns your claim that God does not have the "conscious ability" to design genetic codes. This, of course, ties in with the vital (for me) question of life as the product of accident or design. Given that God must be pretty clever to create the "fundamental particles", has a purpose (to see himself reflected), and has infinite time to fiddle around with his own materials, I really can't see why you should believe he's not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself, whereas blind unthinking chance is! This in fact, in a different form, is one of the great battlegrounds between atheism and theism.-Once again, my thanks for all this clarification. We may not share beliefs, but at least we're coming to an understanding.