Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.
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Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator.
Either the Creator’s intelligence ultimately owes its origin to a mindless nothing; or there is a Creator’s Creator.
Either the Creator’s Creator’s intelligence ultimately owes its origin to a mindless nothing; or there is a Creator’s Creator’s Creator.
Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator
...or certain people can reconcile their beliefs with proven scientific fact:
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And when even the Church of England can bury & memorialise Charles Darwin & Prof. Stephen Hawking in their central place of worship Westminster Abbey: even openly admitting that much of your Bible - including Genesis - is purely fable & metaphor: as in not to be taken literally , then you know you have problems: and not just with the above completely obliterating your entire 'argument'.
There's also the matter of what is the basis - as in the doctrine - of your own belie fs. Better not be a KJV-onlyist if you value your particular 'Belie fs', OP. Why?
Better not look up who the authoriser of your precious KJV was - as in which particular denomination of Christianity he was head of - if you know what's good for you.
Er, no, it’s the ever more extensive understanding of how cognition works, including being able to induct mental stimuli by targeted stimulation of the brain and the loss of specific functions following brain damage in specific areas, as well as the universal consistent success of naturalism in explaining things, that allows us to be most confident that the mind is an emergent phenomenon of brain physiology.
And really, I don’t see what exactly about intelligence/the mind/the psyche would suggest them to be supernatural phenomena. It always seems to be based on blatant wishful thinking motivated from fear of death, desire to feel special, maintaining cultural belief and/or mystery mongering.
So, i watch my fellow sailors drink themselves into oblivion on a regular basis.
A biological machine polluting the bloodstream with chemicals suffers outrageous slterations in personality, mood, cognitive ability, motor skills, and the ability to not piss its pants.
What about such a process would lead me to think that a higher being was involved?
The missile guidance systems i work on? They're shielded. We anticipate their exposure to EMPs and radiation and take steps to ensure functional operation despite such interference.
So, what, the God who foresaw Revelation didn't know Man would invent alcohol? Didn't harden certain parts of the mind from deciding to sin while under the influence?
You'd think a loving god would at least make sure drunk drivers were safe to get home without creating widows and orphans....
@Bastethotep #91395
I know I’m not fond of obliterative death (amnesiac afterlife/reincarnation included), yet I don’t see what part of “successive lives” needs a deity to be possible. Is it somehow inherently unnatural for the mind/soul (same thing, really) to move between universes with each “moult”? (And why is everyone looking at me like that?)
Never mind that from the viewpoint of the deity in question, what they do isn’t supernatural, just natural. Whether they deem us subnatural, though…
If human intelligence is the deliberate design of a creator then that creator is either deeply flawed or utterly insane.
Because not only does insanity, cognitive dissonance, and stupidity exist at the fundamental level the same immutable facts prompt entirely different logic from every individual and for a creator to intend that it would mean they shaped each one and hold them valid, including those that completely contradict one another. One being holding all these infinite conflicting views simultaneously could only be insane. One who deliberately creates things to be wrong has first by definition proved they're not infallible even if they screwed up on purpose and second indicated malice particularly if this has consequences for their deliberately flawed creation.
@Passerby #91427
There’s a question of whether said creator is omniscient, obviously. Although you’re managing to call a question of whether sapience is inherently insane…
More than that, there might be a question of whether the kind of accord you imply should be possible can even appear with beings without omniscience. Every distinct being has a slightly different vantage point, after all, so they’ll have different information—the source of at-least-brief clashes, or at least uncertainty. Outside of a Hive Mind (read: no individuality), such schism et al. is guaranteed.
So there’s now a question of whether a creator who wanted their created beings to have full individuality and distinctiveness—to not be a Hive Mind—would have to be either insane of greatly flawed.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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