Evidence for God from Science

PaulSacramento wrote: I don't agree with any definition of faith that calls into question reason or evidence.
That sounds too much like "blind faith". Faith in anything requires a REASON to have faith.

Thinking about the story with the deer-mom, well, the mom could have faith based on reason and evidence. In the past she could have encountered other drivers and those people let her cross the road.

kmr wrote: Our soul is what causes us to actually feel and see what we experience. I can actually see the computer screen I am staring at, it is not simply a mindless reaction to a chemical signal. I can't speak for you, but I am sure that you can determine for yourself whether or not you have a soul simply by asking yourself whether you are actually seeing what you see or if it is just an ordered chemical reaction. I think you can figure it out.

Mmmmm. So, it comes down to feelings. Do you guys feel your soul? What do you feel? How do you feel it? How do you know it's not an illusion?

I am still thinking about the neo's answer. I only have few objections. Animals can plan, can and do make tools, but yeah, not to an extent we do. Btw, gorilla "Koko took an IQ test wherein she obtained a surprising score of 90 points. This is close to what we consider as the average score of human beings (100 points)."

Byblos wrote:

1over137 wrote:

Byblos wrote:When a dolphin can communicate what it plans to do in a decade, next year, or even tomorrow, with plans that may run counter to its evolutionary survival, then you might have a case.

Mmmm. I found the following interesting stories. First one is about gorilla Koko which "speaks fluent sign language and not only still laments the death of her mother 30 years later but also says she plans on teaching her children sign language." Or chimpanz Santino which "on many mornings, calmly gathers rocks into a pile, waits until the zoo opens, and then uses them to dispel the crowd of gawkers surrounding his enclosure." So these two animals can plan and think and IMO reason.

I don't see how any of this disagrees with what I've said.

I was showing that animals also plan. I was trying to 'have a case'. I only disagree with your condition for reasoning - to run counter to evolutionary survival.

All these questions make me ask... Are we just sacks of skin/water walking around a devoid world with nothing for us once we die then? What is "choice?"

Talking about animals and intelligence...I read an article on here about a monkey that would grab a box from one side of the room stand on it and get a banana on top of a counter on the other side of the room each morning. One morning they changed the box to a sheet of paper and the monkey started hopping on a sheet of paper to get to the banana..makes me think about logic and identification?

1over137 wrote:

Byblos wrote:

1over137 wrote:

Byblos wrote:When a dolphin can communicate what it plans to do in a decade, next year, or even tomorrow, with plans that may run counter to its evolutionary survival, then you might have a case.

Mmmm. I found the following interesting stories. First one is about gorilla Koko which "speaks fluent sign language and not only still laments the death of her mother 30 years later but also says she plans on teaching her children sign language." Or chimpanz Santino which "on many mornings, calmly gathers rocks into a pile, waits until the zoo opens, and then uses them to dispel the crowd of gawkers surrounding his enclosure." So these two animals can plan and think and IMO reason.

I don't see how any of this disagrees with what I've said.

I was showing that animals also plan. I was trying to 'have a case'. I only disagree with your condition for reasoning - to run counter to evolutionary survival.

A plan to do what, to better communicate with their offspring? That's not planning, merely adapting and certainly does not run counter to their evolutionary survival (and by the way, how did it work out for Koko and her offspring?). A few examples of that would be extreme altruism, monks and vows of celibacy, etc. But all of this merely scratches the surface of the differences between animals and humans. A Treatise on the Soul is a good start.

Which soul?
The Hebrew notion of soul? the classical greek? the greek influenced Christian notion? the Hebrew derived Christian notion?
God breathed his spirit into Man and man became a living soul.
Can the soul be killed? Yes.
Is the soul immortal? Only when "attached" to the spirit.
We do tend to confuse spirit and soul at times.

PaulSacramento wrote:Which soul?
The Hebrew notion of soul? the classical greek? the greek influenced Christian notion? the Hebrew derived Christian notion?
God breathed his spirit into Man and man became a living soul.
Can the soul be killed? Yes.
Is the soul immortal? Only when "attached" to the spirit.
We do tend to confuse spirit and soul at times.

What does that have anything to do with what we're discussing Paul? We're talking about what makes us different from animals. The link I referenced was in that spirit, even though it is a more detailed treatise.

1over137 wrote:

DannyM wrote: So again, why does it “seem” that way to you? What similarities? Is all mental activity reduced to purely physical processes? Is love merely synonymous with the part of the brain that is stimulated when one is brought into visual or mental contact with ‘whatever’ one happens to love, or 'feel passionate’ about?

Similarities: they stay together for life, they support each other, do things together, the cob even would lay down his life for his family, then the beutoful swan dance …

These are observations of similarities between different species in cohabiting relationships. Terrific. Nothing new here. What does it *tell* you about ‘love‘? Identifying some behaviours of people in ‘love’ does not tell you anything about what love is.

1over137 wrote:I have a question (maybe weird one). God made humans. He made our brains. He made all the biochemistry. He made the centre for love in our brain. What extra was put into our brains?

Is the mind reducible to the brain?

DannyM wrote: The link to ‘love’ went nowhere., but I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_basis_for_love
Is this what you would like to put forward?

1over137 wrote:That link is almost the same as my link. What are your disagreements?

What would there be to disagree about? I see speculation and the odd truism.

Byblos wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:Which soul?
The Hebrew notion of soul? the classical greek? the greek influenced Christian notion? the Hebrew derived Christian notion?
God breathed his spirit into Man and man became a living soul.
Can the soul be killed? Yes.
Is the soul immortal? Only when "attached" to the spirit.
We do tend to confuse spirit and soul at times.

What does that have anything to do with what we're discussing Paul? We're talking about what makes us different from animals. The link I referenced was in that spirit, even though it is a more detailed treatise.

Well, depending on the view of soul, some believe animals do have souls:
A righteous man knows the soul of his animal - Proverbs 12:10

A view by a rabbi:
http://rooster613.blogspot.com/2011/03/ ... art-i.html

PaulSacramento wrote:

Byblos wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:Which soul?
The Hebrew notion of soul? the classical greek? the greek influenced Christian notion? the Hebrew derived Christian notion?
God breathed his spirit into Man and man became a living soul.
Can the soul be killed? Yes.
Is the soul immortal? Only when "attached" to the spirit.
We do tend to confuse spirit and soul at times.

What does that have anything to do with what we're discussing Paul? We're talking about what makes us different from animals. The link I referenced was in that spirit, even though it is a more detailed treatise.

Well, depending on the view of soul, some believe animals do have souls:
A righteous man knows the soul of his animal - Proverbs 12:10

A view by a rabbi:
http://rooster613.blogspot.com/2011/03/ ... art-i.html

And where did I say otherwise? In fact I specifically said that animals do have souls (albeit a different kind of soul than humans, by virtue of being created in the image of God).

I am still thinking about the neo's answer. I only have few objections. Animals can plan, can and do make tools, but yeah, not to an extent we do. Btw, gorilla "Koko took an IQ test wherein she obtained a surprising score of 90 points. This is close to what we consider as the average score of human beings (100 points)."

this is indeed amazing, and to study more about it would be fascinating. Yet I would say that I see no objections here. Your statement above is exactly what i hold to. I agree with you if you see my point which is, animals can do a lot of things, I personally think they can, but not on the same level as us. I have nothing against animal intelligence or behavior but I cannot see how it can be equated to humans.

spartanII wrote: All these questions make me ask... Are we just sacks of skin/water walking around a devoid world with nothing for us once we die then? What is "choice?"

May I ask you first whether prokaryotes have choice?

DannyM wrote: These are observations of similarities between different species in cohabiting relationships. Terrific. Nothing new here. What does it *tell* you about ‘love‘? Identifying some behaviours of people in ‘love’ does not tell you anything about what love is.

I'd like to ask the following: Imagine we live 10 000 years ago. What tells us what love is?

DannyM wrote:

1over137 wrote: I have a question (maybe weird one). God made humans. He made our brains. He made all the biochemistry. He made the centre for love in our brain. What extra was put into our brains?

Is the mind reducible to the brain?

Atheist would tell you so.

spartanII wrote:
All these questions make me ask... Are we just sacks of skin/water walking around a devoid world with nothing for us once we die then? What is "choice?"


May I ask you first whether prokaryotes have choice?

I think you guys are now mixing biology with philosophy. I can see your point Hana. There are levels of choice and the entity we call choice occurs for those who are not designed to do a singular task. Otherwise if there is no rationale to conclude whether it is beneficial to do something or not - then choice is nothing more than an arbitrary entity designed to give an illusion. But without complicating things. We can be pretty sure that human do have choice, animals have that but on a smaller scale. Organisms might vary in this. Depending on the purpose that they were originally built for.

1over137 wrote:I'd like to ask the following: Imagine we live 10 000 years ago. What tells us what love is?

The first theologian didn't do a bad job two thousand years ago.

Is the mind reducible to the brain?

Atheist would tell you so.

Then there are no truths or falsehoods. No brain state can be ‘true’ or ‘false’ since our brain states are not about anything. How would the atheist explain our ability to reason and obtain knowledge?

DannyM wrote:

1over137 wrote: I'd like to ask the following: Imagine we live 10 000 years ago. What tells us what love is?

The first theologian didn't do a bad job two thousand years ago.

And 10 000 years ago? 2000 years ago, there were already some scriptures.

DannyM wrote:

1over137 wrote:

DannyM wrote: Is the mind reducible to the brain?

Atheist would tell you so.

Then there are no truths or falsehoods. No brain state can be ‘true’ or ‘false’ since our brain states are not about anything. How would the atheist explain our ability to reason and obtain knowledge?

There are truths and falsehoods. Truth is the truth by definition. Falsehood is the opposite of truth.

Atheist could ask you first whether you think that Milo (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... child.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDvHlwNvXaM) has ability to reason and obtain knowledge.

1over137 wrote:Atheist could ask you first whether you think that Milo (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... child.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDvHlwNvXaM) has ability to reason and obtain knowledge.

Here's another Milo demonstration by Peter Molyneux (the guy who invented Milo). Here's an exact quote of what he says at minute 1:45

Peter Molyneux wrote: ... now I'll be honest with you and say that most of it is just a trick, but a trick that actually works ...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure atheists will fall for a trick like that too.