Frank\'s Theology (General)
Part One- In order to tidy up the threads, I'm separating this discussion from the one on "Nothing". This response is to Frank's posts under "Problems with this section; for Frank" on Thursday 26 November at 00.18, 02.59, and 03.41.-Frank: One thing I've noticed is that you're extremely fond of sifting through past posts of mine and quoting what I've said verbatim, diligently looking for contradictions. This requires a lot of thought and a high degree of intelligence. At my senile old age, I'm no longer good at thinking and am no longer very intelligent. Therefore, frankly, I'm not the least bit interested in what I wrote ten minutes ago let alone yesterday for heaven's sake.-Then are we both wasting our time? What is the point of responding to an argument that is of no interest to its proponent ten minutes later? As for my being "extremely fond of sifting" etc., if you think my object has been to look for contradictions, you have totally misconstrued the very nature of this forum, not to mention my own nature. You entered into our discussions with some pretty startling ideas. I've now spent a month trying to make sense of the inconsistencies that I keep finding in those ideas, because I felt that you had a great deal to offer if only I could get to the bottom of what you were thinking. In fact I still believe this, particularly in view of the common ground between you, BBella and David, and I've not only looked forward to your responses but have also followed your other discussions with great interest. No, Frank, I'm not looking for contradictions, and I only search and quote verbatim so that I can't be accused of misrepresentation. I'm looking for coherent explanations, but I can't get them unless we iron out the inconsistencies. My hope has been that this exercise might be beneficial for both of us.-With this hope still in mind, I would like to continue our discussion. The fact that you go to so much trouble to explain your ideas ... for which I and others have many times expressed our appreciation ... encourages me to do so, but if by the time you read this you genuinely aren't interested in the arguments I'm responding to, then we should end the discussion.-I wrote, in relation to individual identity, that "there's a fundamental core which is my individuality." You responded: "You would feel that you are you even if you experienced total amnesia. Even a schizophrenic jumps from persona to persona, always sensing that he is he. That sort of suggests that the consciousness itself stems from something more primordial than a past history, which is what I've been saying all along." -You have indeed. You have said on more than one occasion that the consciousness stems from God, and that it "runs through" the brain until the brain dies. I have maintained that individual identity is tied to consciousness, and you have said that individual identity is the illusion of separateness. Allow me once more to link these two items and, since I keep misinterpreting your statements, ask you please to explain: a) what you mean by God's consciousness "running through" the brain, b) the illusion of separateness from what? And c) since you believe your consciousness and my consciousness are actually God's, and our separateness is an illusion, what makes you think differently from me?-The schizophrenic conundrum is a corny joke I remember from my schooldays: PRIEST (to schizophrenic): Don't worry, you'll be fine in the afterlife. SCHIZOPHRENIC: Will we? -And yes, of course I'm acting the devil's advocate. I have stressed that these are ideas and not beliefs. As for schizophrenia, it's only one of many unanswered questions associated with the concept of an afterlife, but there are unanswered questions associated with every belief and non-belief.-When I wrote that God is "aware of every single creature (since he loves them all)", I meant that I was basing the claim of awareness on your statement ... which you have repeated ... that God loves every individual. He can't love them if he isn't aware of them. Sorry for the ambiguity.-My response continues in Part Two.
Frank\'s Theology
Part Two-For simplicity's sake, let us confine the rest of the discussion to the human condition, which is what we both know most about. You say God is "aware of the ecstasy in every individual, which is 99.99% of existence." May I ask where you got that figure from? The people of Iraq, perhaps, or Afghanistan, Burma, Tibet, Palestine, Darfur, Sudan, Zimbabwe etc....those who are suffering from disease, deprivation, depression even within our own circle of personal acquaintances? Do you think that despite their pain they are 99.99% ecstatic, and believe life is "a bowl of cherries", and their suffering is to be dismissed as a "mere blip in the history of any intelligent species". You accuse me of limited perspective. At least my limited perspective encompasses those who are not as well off as myself, and it also encompasses the realities of the present as opposed to the grand perspective of your future scenario, in which "we'll all be happy billionaires" and "explode into Paradise on Earth" ... although "we" won't because "we" will be dead and buried.-You have in any case presented a distorted account of my attitude. I wrote: "the almost-but-not-quite-ultimate horror is that he can't do anything about it. (The ultimate horror would be that he enjoys it.)" I don't know why you have taken the parenthesis to be my "view". The whole paragraph concerns the implications of your theology. Of course there's no horror attached to the good side of life, which is why I pointed out that I was focusing on suffering and not on joy. The God depicted by you accidentally sparked off evolution here on Earth and can't do anything about what even you have called "the horrendous amount of human suffering" he has caused. That's an aspect of your theology which, together with what appears to be your almost flippant trivialization of suffering, I find thoroughly off-putting. But for your information, I am one of the lucky ones, I love life, and I appreciate this wonderful opportunity given to me, whether by God or by abiogenesis or by the rabble who live on Mount Olympus. -Finally, you wrote: "To illustrate just how incoherent your view is [referring to the hypothetical sadist God in whom I do not believe], if God was the cause of pain and enjoyed it, why wouldn't he have arranged the laws of nature to be 99.99% painful instead of 99.99% joyful?" Quite apart from your statistical fantasy, and "to illustrate just how incoherent your view is", one reason might be that until you asked this question, your God hadn't been able to organize pain or joy. Admittedly arranging the laws of nature is not quite the same as creating them out of nothing, but it'll do just as well, since it gives him the control and responsibility which you have been denying him in your theology for the last month. -(P.S. Is Matt all right? He's not usually this silent.)
Frank\'s Theology: Love
I've waited a few days in the hope that Frank would reply to my last post, but I fear my constant harping on the contradictions may have finally proved too much to bear. I'm sorry for this, and maybe I'm too fastidious.-There are still a lot of subjects raised by Frank that are far from being exhausted, but one that we've never discussed directly on this forum also combines posts by David and BBella. BBella believes there is "a 3rd quality that is not considered in the "dualistic cosmologies" and without which there would only be light and darkness, and maybe even multifaces of God, but nothing more...and this 3rd quality is love (for lack of a better word)."-Frank believes that God loves every individual, and our consciousness is God's, "running through" our brain, while David reports that in many cases of NDE, the patient experiences an overwhelming feeling of peace and love. We're not talking here just about the love that binds partners together ... this is something much wider, which encompasses sympathy, empathy, pity, compassion, protectiveness, charity and all the qualities that represent the better side of nature. We shouldn't confine these to humans ... they are present in many animals too, though like most aspects of consciousness probably not developed on the scale we find in humans. It seems to me that a good deal of man-made suffering is caused by the absence of these qualities, which can all be subsumed under the term "love".-We've spent a long time discussing consciousness and subconsciousness, and the fact is that despite the proven links with the physical brain, there is still no explanation as to how the cells produce ideas, imagination, memory, emotions etc. If we focus exclusively on love, I think the mystery deepens still further. This is a force of such strength that without it, not only would species die out immediately (no mammal can survive without the self-sacrificing devotion of its mother), but in human society its absence spells chaos and misery ... the absolute triumph of selfishness. Our laws are an attempt to make up for its absence: we punish those who criminally put into practice their disregard for the feelings of others; but our laws are powerless to prevent the effects of, for instance, an upbringing without love. Many criminals have a troubled, loveless childhood, and so do many psychiatric patients. -There's nothing new in all this, but yet again it raises the question: what is the source? A materialist would say (I presume) that it's all chemicals and electrical impulses, but how can they transform themselves into this all-powerful emotion? Religious people may claim that the source is God. But the love I feel is MY love. It comes out of me, and it's directed towards people outside myself. I don't believe, as Frank does, that my identity or that of others is an "illusion of separateness". If you claimed this in court, you'd probably be found not guilty by reason of insanity. ("It wasn't me, guv. I'm an illusion of separateness. It was God wot dunnit.") God is nowhere in the relationship between my individual identity and that of my individual loved ones, and I can also feel a general bond between myself and my fellow creatures without the need for a universal consciousness. But if love does not arise out of our chemicals or out of a force beyond ourselves, where does it come from?
Frank\'s Theology: Love
by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Friday, December 04, 2009, 18:02 (5280 days ago) @ dhw
It seems to me that there is no need to bring theology into this subject at all. That is just an irrelevant complication.-Love is just the natural need of people to help one another in the struggle for existence. No great mystery there surely?
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GPJ